Students Build and Program Robotics to Compete in Orange County League

Tasked with designing, building, programming and operating a robot that could complete tasks, a team of St. Margaret’s students took part in this year’s FIRST Tech Challenge, a robotics competition for students grades 7-12.

 

St. Margaret’s was part of a newly formed Orange County FTC league, participating in four meets around the county. It required building a robot that could lift foam blocks and carefully place them in a tic-tac-toe grid during head-to-head matchups with other teams.

 

“We used the engineering method in designing, building and programming our robot: identify the problem, explore, design, create, try it out and then make it better,” freshman team captain Espen Garner said. “We documented the process in an engineering notebook.”

 

St. Margaret’s squad featured Espen, junior Carly Kellner, grade 8 students Alex Georgiades and Morgan Williams and grade 7 students Mari Edler and Alden Copps. Middle School science teacher Eric Harrington served as the team sponsor.

 

The Orange County FTC league culminated with a 25-team meet in Perris earlier this month. The Tartans also held a demonstration at the Lower School Family STEAM Night at St. Margaret’s, allowing younger students to try out the robot.

 

“We had our best meet of the year (in Perris),” Espen said. “Overall we are very happy with our season and can’t wait to build on it next year.”