An excerpt from the FIRST awards descriptions states the Connect Award recognizes a team for, “helping the community understand FIRST, the FIRST Tech Challenge, and the team itself.” Team 7373 was recognized for their efforts in engaging with various astronauts, local manufacturing companies, and community organizations to cultivate opportunities in both STEM and non-STEM interactions. Team 7373 also placed 2nd in the Inspire Award, so they will be moving on the Georgia State Tournament!

Team 11364 won the Inspire Award at the tournament. FIRST states that this award is given to the team that “embodied the ‘challenge’ of the FIRST Tech Challenge program”. The Inspire Award recognized Team 11364 for their comprehensive engineering documentation, continual Gracious Professionalism, and outreach efforts to the community and with STEM professionals.

Throughout the day, there were minor problems with the robot malfunctioning or the autonomous not working properly. However, after a couple of matches, the team figured it out and managed to score abundantly throughout matches. After the seeding rounds, Team 7373 was in 2nd place and teamed up with the 1st seed alliance in the finals. 7373 finished as a semifinalist, and the robot performed valiantly throughout the day.

The team performed well despite several robot malfunctions. Keeping a positive mindset, the team got together to keep fixing the problems each time one arose. 11364 went into the elimination rounds as as the fourth seed, and finished the day as semifinalist.

Mount Paran Eagle Robotics FLL Team 9331 Mindstorm Chasers competed at the FIRST LEGO League State Championship at Georgia Tech on Saturday, February 2.  Members of the FTC teams were there to cheer them on. Team 9331 competed well all day and finished in 12th place in the robot game out of 32 teams. Team 9331 did extraordinarily well in their robot, project and core values judging sessions. Team 9331 finished the day with the Inspiration Award for demonstrating outstanding core values to the judges and the rest of the teams. They even received a personal encouragement from Astronaut Susan Kilrain leading up to the event (See below)! Congratulations to Team 9331! ​​

On February 21, Eagle Robotics will have the opportunity to video chat with Shane Kimbrough, a NASA Astronaut! Shane Kimbrough has logged a total of 189 days in space. Before even being selected as an Astronaut, he worked for NASA as a Flight Simulation Engineer. We look forward to the opportunity to learn from him!

The team believes that their judging presentation was strong, but they will work on improving the connections between different areas of the team. As for the robot, the entire system for picking up mineral samples will be redone. It has already been completely removed from the robot, and a simpler, more efficient design will be used so that the robot is more competitive. The largest area that the team hopes to improve in is driving the robot. The robot will be finished a week before the competition as to give the team time to practice driving the new system.

Team 11364 had a strong overall performance at the League Tournament; however, they will be working to improve every aspect of their team as they prepare for the state competition. Together, they hope to continue to participate in outreach events and continue connecting with the community to better serve those around them. In addition, Team 11364 will design and build a new intake and hanging systems for the robot, focusing on efficiency and strength as they build these systems. Lastly, the team will hold more driver practices, as they work to develop two drive teams for competition. The team hopes to focus on improving their robot, outreach, and driving practices as they prepare for the state competition.

Miss an update? All newsletters for the 2018-19 season are archived here​