Yesterday our two school robotics teams competed in a regional FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) competition called DECODE, joining teams from across the region for a full day of engineering, coding and competitive robotics.
FIRST Tech Challenge is an international robotics programme where students design, build and program robots to compete head-to-head in a themed game released each year. Teams must develop their own robot designs, write code to control them and continually refine their engineering throughout the season.
This year’s game, DECODE, presented teams with a complex field and a wide range of scoring challenges. Robots needed to collect and score game elements, complete strategic tasks during autonomous and driver-controlled periods, and carefully plan their approach to maximise points during the end game. The challenge required not only strong engineering but also thoughtful strategy and teamwork.
Our teams with students from Year 8 to Year 13 performed strongly in the initial qualification rounds, competing against ten other teams and successfully advancing to the next stage of the competition. The knock-out rounds brought even tougher opposition, with some highly experienced teams demonstrating sophisticated robot designs and strategies. After several closely contested matches, our teams finished around 6th overall, an excellent result in such a competitive field.
Throughout the day both teams worked tirelessly in the pit area between matches, making rapid modifications to their robots and refining their code. New mechanisms were added and adjustments made to improve performance, with each outing showing clear improvements in speed, reliability and scoring ability.
The teams were also thrilled to receive two competition awards in recognition of their work. They were presented with the Reach Award, which celebrates teams that actively engage with their community and promote STEM and robotics beyond the competition, and the Innovate Award, recognising creative engineering design and innovative solutions in robot development. Awarded for our use of 90 degree gearboxes to keep our robot footprint within the regulation dimensions.
The success of the teams would not have been possible without the dedication of their coaches and mentors, who support the students throughout the season with guidance, technical expertise and encouragement. Thank you to Helen Bowen at JMHS, Malinda Thomas at Raytheon, and Tom French at QinetiQ. The teams are also very grateful for the support of their sponsors, Raytheon Technologies, Galebreaker, Bytesnap and QinetiQ, whose contributions help make it possible for students to participate in robotics competitions and develop valuable STEM skills.
The competition was a fantastic experience for everyone involved. Our students demonstrated impressive teamwork, resilience and engineering creativity throughout the day, and represented the school brilliantly. We are incredibly proud of their efforts and look forward to seeing how their robots continue to develop in future competitions.
Go Teams Enigma Phoenix and CTRL+ALT+DEFEAT!
