ROBOTICS FTC NATIONAL TOURNAMENT
Theme: Power Play
The 3-day National Robotics Tournament culminated with the Jamaica College’s ‘BlueBot’ team on top.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge – Feb. 24 – 25, 2023.
The First Tech Challenge in Jamaica has been planned and executed by Jamaica College Past students Gavin Samuels, Paul Pounall and Ricardo Anderson and a hard-working team. See more on the planning committee at https://jamaicarobotics.org/planning-committee/
Held in the Jamaica College’s Karl Hendrickson’s auditorium. School’s register to participate and prepare for months. There were over 20 schools participating this year, with JC and York Castle entering 2 teams for their school.
The team 3981 AKA Griffins and the team 6899 AKA BlueBots remained high on the qualifying leaderboard throughout the competition. The Griffins held the first positions and for most of Friday into Saturday, the BlueBots held the 4th position. The teams ‘punched above their weight’ and by the end of Saturday the BlueBots moved into the 2nd position and the Griffins held the 1st.
For the qualifying round, each team played 5 matches. The team leaders of top 4 teams were then brought up to start the elimination round to see who were the winners of the event’s challenge. Each team leader chose 2 other teams as their alliance (teams that will help them to win). Teams that were chosen, had the choice to accept or decline.
The four(4) teams that rose to the top were (1) JC Griffins (2) JC BlueBots (3) Immaculate Blue Flames (4) Campion College.
The winning alliance was BlueBots, Carol Mirgan High, & Phoenix Requiem -Glenmuir.
The opening ceremony had the Minister of Education and Principal Robinson opening with addresses and motivation to the teams. Present were representatives from the sponsors, which included NCB Foundation.
The teams are interviewed by a group of judges who are seeking other attributes and not just the ability win the challenge. There are many awards (Trophies, medals, certificates of participation, Gear shaped trophies and other recognition)
Click on the image to left to hear a little of the Principal Robinson’s opening of the event.
The awards that distributed were:
| CAMPUS AWARD -won by Alpha Academy | DESIGN AWARD -won by our JC Griffins | MOTIVATE AWARD – BlueBots were in the top 3, this was won by Monroe College |
| CONTROL AWARD -won by CMS Sharks | INNOVATIVE AWARD -AISK, Campion College & Wolmers Boys were top 3, the winners were AISK | CONNECT AWARD -York Castle’s teams (2) and ICHS were the top 3. Immaculate Blue Flames won that trophy. |
| THINK AWARD -The top 3 were AISK, Calabar & Alpha Academy. Calabar won this award. | The NCB SPIRIT AWARD -the top 3 were Holy Childhood High, St. Jago & York Castle Drones. York Castle Drones won this award. | PERFORMACE AWARD -The top 3 were the JC Griffins, Calabar & St. Jago. All got medals. |
| CHAIRMAN AWARD -the hard-working, dedicated, Paul Pounall | INSPIRE AWARD -The BlueBots were the winners and the Blue Flames of ICHS were the runners up. [Both will go to Houston, Texas in April] | EVENT CHALLENGE AWARD went to the BLUEBOTS. JC did very well. |
What is Historic was the BlueBots were the first team to win BOTH the event and the Inspire awards. They have earned the place in the World Championships that will be taking place Houston, Texas in April. The last time JC won the Inspire Award was 2019.
DAY 2 – FULL EVENT – CLICK HERE
DAY 1 – FULL EVENT – CLICK HERE
Click on the image on the left for the official results.
Jason Brown (JC’s past Robotics’ Club faculty advisor was very entertaining as he did the running commentary and he led the teams in ‘letting down their hair’ during the lunch hour.
CLICK THE IMAGE TO THE LEFT TO SEE THE FUN TIME THE TEAMS HAD.
The day ends with JC Griffins Vs JC BlueBots – HISTORIC!
The teams worked hard to achieve all that they did.
Congratulations JC!
Click on the image to see one of their matches.
See you Next Year!
Reported by Dawn & Derryk MacGregor (including the capturing of pictures and videos of the event)
