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Agawam's seventh-through 10th-grade FIRST Tech Challenge robotics teams, OMG and MIGHTY Mechanics, shown here recently competed in a regional tournament in Arlington; the OMG team went on to compete in the state championship.
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AGAWAM - Agawam's two seventh- through 10th-grade FIRST Tech Challenge robotics teams are celebrating this spring with successful seasons.
The teams, FTC Team 90, also known as OMG, and FTC Team 839, also known as MIGHTY Mechanics, spent five months and many hours preparing for rigorous regional competitions.
The teams spent several afternoons each week for months preparing for their first qualifying tournament, held in the eastern Massachusetts community of Arlington on Jan. 24.
The challenge in this tournament was to collect and score practice plastic baseballs and golf balls into vertical clear plastic goals. The teams also scored points by getting their robots and goals into certain areas of the playing field. There were five matches in all.
Through this experience, the teams conducted research, gained college-level experience with training in computer aided design and programming, built and rebuilt prototypes, manufactured parts using various hand tools and wired all electronics.
John "Jay" Cameron and his wife, Charlene Cameron, are co-coaches of FTC Team 839, which finished the tournament in eighth place. They also won the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award for "bringing great ideas from concept to reality."
"The challenge for me is to learn who the students are and where their talents lie," said Jay Cameron. "Most students are exploring career opportunities. They are experimenting: 'Maybe I want to do graphic arts, or machining.' All are available and encouraged for each student to try to find out what really lights their fire."
Cameron said the biggest challenge for FTC Team 839 was that the team's only programmer last year aged up to high school robotics this year.
"I developed a post-season learning opportunity to allow kids to explore programming, to find out who might get excited about it," he said.
Cameron, a mechanical engineer with no programming experience, found that student in Nicholas Charest, an eighth-grader who just finished his second year with the robotics team.
"Programming was a lot of fun," Charest said. "Someone who worked at 3M came to show us. There was a lot of trial and error."
Charest said he is leaning towards using programming in his career, but he's still exploring his options.
FTC Team 90, also known as OMG, coached by Edwin and Wincy Chan, finished the qualifier in second place as a rookie team. That earned them a trip to another competition in February, in an attempt to qualify to the Massachusetts state championships. They successfully made it to the state championship meet, on Feb. 28, but did not make the cut to move on to further competitions.
Both teams are participating in a variety of post-season fun and educational sessions.
Any sixth- or seventh-grade student interested in participating in robotics in Agawam to learn more about science, technology, engineering and more, can send email to ftccoach@agawamrobotics.org. For more information about the FIRST Tech program, visit the website, usfirst.org.