Schools

Santana Engineering & Robotics Club Finishes in Top 20 in Competition

The Sultans move onto the Las Vegas Regional in April.

The Santana Engineering and Robotics Club competed in the seventh annual San Diego Regional FIRST Robotics Competition held at the Valley View Casino Center last weekend. After competing in ten qualifying matches, Santana finished in the top 20 overall.

The three-day event consisted of a competitive competition showcasing robots developed and operated by 60 high school teams. The FIRST Robotics Competition joins professionals and young people together to solve an engineering design problem in the manner of a high-tech spectator sporting event. The competition shows students that the basic concepts in science, math, engineering, and invention are exciting and interesting.

Beginning in early January, the Santana Engineering and Robotics Club worked with professional mentors to design and build a robot over a six-week period that solved a problem using a kit of parts and a standard set of rules. At the competition, this year’s game, “Ultimate Ascent,” had the robots throwing Frisbee discs through goals with different point values. The robots were pre-programmed to execute loading and throwing commands.

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Some teams participating in the competition chose to have their robots execute one or two aspects of the challenge, but in only their second year of competition, the Santana Engineering and Robotics Club was able to execute all three aspects of the game, autonomous mode, human drivers mode, and climbing of the pyramid structure.

The Sultans move onto the Las Vegas Regional in April. Last year the team won the Rookie All-Star Award and went to the World Championships in St. Louis.

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A Grossmont Union High School District submission contributed to this post.


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