Thomas County Central High School Robotics program teams have completed their competition season.
The CyberStingers Green team earned the Motivate Award at FTC Georgia State Championship held Feb. 24 at Clayton State University in Morrow. Team members are: Hailey Ferrel, Zach Goff, C'lee Kornegay, Jackson NeSmith, Zach Sharpe, Thomas Tran and Ben Wilhelm.
The Motivate Award is given to the team that best embraces and promotes the FIRST Tech Challenge’s mission. The judged award recognizes teams whose members clearly demonstrate teamwork, team building and team spirit.
"All of the teams in FTC are required and encouraged to reach out to their community, their school, and other FTC teams,” CyberStingers Green member Zach Goff said. “The outreach that teams perform is important as it helps build a sense of community and can help teams to win awards…. Our school teams worked hard to spread the FIRST values to the school, other teams, and the Thomas County community."
The team was also a finalist for the state Control Award, given to the team that uses sensors and software to improve its robot's functionality on the field. The Green team's robot used a color sensor to knock off the correct "jewel" and a phone camera to decipher a code during autonomous, explains TCCHS Robotics advisor Laura Kornegay. The robot regularly scored the maximum points attainable during the autonomous period.
Member Zachary Sharpe is proud of his work in this competition.
“Though it was my first year programming competitively, I am extremely proud of the work I put toward my team and our robot,” he said. “We may not have come home with a trophy for it, but I do not regret the time and effort I put toward our project.”
The CyberStingers Blue team also contended at state competition.
This race marks the end of the season for TCCHS Robotics. Member Jackson NeSmith says even though state competition didn’t go as well as they’d hoped, it was still a successful season overall.
Kornegay says the robotics students should be proud of both their competition level and their accomplishments this season.
"Not only did we bring home three trophies from the region tournament, we also brought one home from the state tournament,” she said. “Thirty-six teams competed at the state level, and we were among the best there.”