Robotics Teams Get Off to Their Strongest Start & Set a New World Record

Our five teams have been hard at work designing and building robots for this year's FIRST Tech Challenge, Rover Ruckus. Uncertainty Principle competed twice in NJ regional meets, after which they were the #1 ranked team in New Jersey. For the first competition, they constructed a device to hoist their whole robot using a deconstructed tape measure. They redesigned their robot for the second tournament, settling instead on a laser-cut latching mechanism. Atomic Theory and Quantum Mechanics competed in the Manhattan qualifier on November 17. They joined together to form the winning alliance for the day and set a new world record score of 340 points.

Out of the 855 teams that have competed in qualifiers nationally, they are ranked #2 (Atomic Theory) and #21 (Quantum Mechanics). By winning the tournament, they qualified for the NYC Superqualifier competitions, which will be held for the first time at Dalton on February 16 and 17. These tournaments will be open to the community, and are a great chance to see the teams in action! The other three teams will have to wait until the Queens qualifier on December 8 and 9 to try and earn a spot.

Story and Photos Provided by Mike Sloan Warren and Charles Forster Stewert