First published in the April 7 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
Photos by Chris Sutton
Outlook Valley Sun
FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, recently held its Tech Challenge, So Cal Regional Semi-Final at Monrovia High School, where multiple La Cañada Flintridge team members competed.
Four teams from LCF, several taking home top honors, moved on to the Regional Championship.
Golden Gears — a “garage” team of 8th graders from La Cañada High School 7/8 — was selected by the top seeded team for the playoff matches. Although their alliance finished as runner-up to the winner, Golden Gears had a strong showing as a young team and placed second in the Innovate Award category for robot design.
Selected in the semi-final round by the fourth seeded team, La Cañada High School and their robot the Porch Pirate moved past the top three seeds to be part of the winning alliance. The judges were also impressed by the complexity of the math used in the Porch Pirate’s control system, awarding La Cañada and team programmer Warren Lam first place in the Control Award category.
Javabots and Rock N’ Roll Robots’ team mentor, Julie Townsend, is an La Cañada Elementary parent leading two teams composed of members from multiple area high schools. Javabots, captain of a finalist alliance, was the Innovate Award winner and placed third in the Inspire, Control and Design Awards. Rock N’ Robots, a semi-final alliance member, was the Motivate Award winner and placed third for the Think Award.
LCHS, Javabots and team Incognito from Flintridge Prep moved on to compete in the Regional Championship and was ranked second, 17th and 21st, respectively.
Javabots took home the Connect Award and Incognito took second in the Control Award category. Finishing in the top four, LCHS was captain of a Finalist Alliance and selected Incognito to compete with in the final round.
