On Sunday morning, December 10, the MTA robotics teams, Lionotics and Lionotics 2, participated in their first competition of the year. The students worked hard to create the best robots possible to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge, a competition that challenges teams to design, build, program and operate robots to compete in a head-to-head challenge. Having access to MTA’s brand-new STEM Lab, which includes a dedicated robotics room with a variety of specialized tools and equipment, enabled the teams to really put their STEM and engineering skills to use. Both teams came into the competition expecting great things, but even they were impressed by how well their robots performed.
As soon as they got to the competition early Sunday morning, the teams got to work doing last minute tweaks and adjustments to the robot. The test went well, although some of the other robots looked intimidating. When the competition started, the students were gratified to see both MTA robots win match after match, picking up win after win until both were 4-0. Although both lost in their last qualifying matches, they still did well enough to pick up third and fourth place in the initial rankings (out of 30)! The Lionotics 2 robot was the only one in the entire competition able to perform one of the most important tasks of the challenge! Then, some last minute improvements were made in preparation for the elimination matches, which only the best teams qualified for.
The MTA teams now had to compete for the championships of the qualifier. Both teams won their semifinal matches, which were best of three, in two games. Then it came down to the finals, with MTA facing off against MTA. In a heated competition, Lionotics beat Lionotics 2 in a close contest. Lionotics took first place and moved on to the next competition, but Lionotics 2 just missed moving on and hopes to win in the next qualifier on January 14.
Congratulations to both teams for an amazing showing on Sunday, and good luck to both Lionotics and Lionotics 2 in their next competitions!
If you would like to sponsor MTA’s robotics teams or want guidance in starting your own team, please contact [email protected].
By Benny Jacob (‘18) and Elishama Marmon (‘20)
