As Spring draws near, the Xavier Robotics Team prepares to finish their season, but not without excitement of what they managed to accomplish.

Xavier Robotics competes in FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), a robotics program that has teams of students design, build, program, and drive robots to compete in a certain challenge. The challenge changes each year, which also means the layout of the playing field, the scoring objects used, the methods of scoring points, and even the rules and regulations change every year. Team members learn and use engineering skills to design a robot for the year’s unique challenge, modify it throughout the season, and remotely control it in competitive matches. There is also an “Autonomous” period at the start of each match, where the robots are given 30 seconds and must score points using only sensors and pre-programmed instructions.

This year, the challenge involved collecting plastic balls and launching them into large goals to score points. By re-ordering the balls and launching them to form certain patterns, bonus points could be earned as well. At the end of each match, robots could earn points by parking in certain taped off zones, and they could earn extra points if they were able to stack on top of another robot in the zone.

In FTC, each match is played with a Red and a Blue alliance, and each alliance is made up of 2 randomly selected teams. At each competition, you will play five qualification matches and be ranked based on your average performance. Afterwards, the top ranked teams are named “Alliance Captains,” and each invite another team to join their alliance for the playoffs. These alliances then compete in a double elimination bracket that decides the competition’s winner. Based on a combination of qualification rankings, performance in the playoffs, and received judged awards, the top teams of each competition are then invited to the State Championship at UConn.

This year, Xavier competed with 4 separate competition teams, each of which is named after a different bird: the FullMetal Kestrels, the FullMetal Peregrines, the FullMetal Phoenixes, and the Semi-Platinum Penguins. All 4 teams advanced to the State Championship where 30 teams competed in total. All 4 teams also played in the playoffs, which consisted of 12 teams.

The FullMetal Kestrels were a member of the winning alliance at States and were 1 of 3 teams to advance to the World Championship in Houston, Texas. They are the first Xavier FTC team to ever qualify for Worlds.

Below them, the Semi-Platinum Penguins finished 3^rd as an Alliance Captain and were 1 of 5 teams to qualify for a Premier Event; They can choose to compete at 1 of the 12 Premier Events, which are hosted throughout the world in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Mexico.

Throughout the season, all 4 Xavier teams won awards based on their final rankings and/or on their interviews with judges:

FullMetal Phoenixes’ Awards –

• Innovate Award

FullMetal Peregrines’ Awards –

• 2^nd place Alliance Partner
• Reach Award

Semi-Platinum Penguins’ Awards –

• 1^st Place Alliance Partner (received at 2 different events)
• Design Award (received at 2 different events)
• Think Award

FullMetal Kestrels’ Awards –

• 1^st place Alliance Partner (received at 2 different events)
• 1^st place Alliance Captain
• 2^nd place Alliance Captain
• 3^rd place Inspire Award
• Connect Award
• Control Award (at the State Championship)