Chatham Middle School’s robotics team, the CMS Chatham Circuits, had a great season competing in the First Tech Challenge (FTC) league this January.
At their first competition on January 18 at Albany Academy, the team won three of the five matches they competed in, despite having technical difficulties which restricted their ability to earn points. They placed 13th out of 27 teams that competed.
After this initial competition, they added an autonomous code to allow them to earn additional points, practiced their driving skills, honed what to say during their judged interview, and created buttons to hand out at competition to help the team network and create relationships with other teams.
The Circuits competed again on January 26 at Broadalbin Perth Jr/Sr High School. They wound up winning four out of the five matches they competed in and placed 7th out of 26 competing teams, which earned them a spot in the semi-finals! Their autonomous code initially had issues due to timing, but through a combined effort of First volunteers and an assist from the Ballston Spa team, they were able to fix the issue and score significantly more points. The judges loved the team’s t-shirt and button design that represents the village of Chatham as a circuit board and the students made major improvements on their judged interview.
The team consists entirely of 7th and 8th grade students, which makes them a rare thing, being that FTC is a 7-12 robotics competition and they have only encountered one other entirely middle school team so far. The team is advised by Chatham teachers Katherine Rossi and Sandy Fischer and is the only FTC team in Columbia County.
Ms. Rossi stated that the team’s results are “a huge accomplishment given that some of our students had never touched a robot before the beginning of the season. We couldn't be more proud of the accomplishments the students made this year.”
Their season is now at an end, but they look forward to presenting to the Board of Education this spring as well as at the CMS Science/Technology Fair and continuing to learn and grow through fun with robots!
