Jaws, the Los Alamos High School Robotics Team’s robot get’s ready to climb during the Mar. 2-3 District Competion in El Paso, Tex. Courtesy photo
Los Alamos High School Robotics Team members pictured last weekend at their first district competition in El Paso, Tex. Courtesy photo
LAHS ROBOTICS NEWS
The Los Alamos High School Robotics Team, Project Y, and their robot “Jaws” were finalists Mar. 2-3 at their first district competition in El Paso, Tex. It was the result of considerable work and long hours even on holidays by the students and their mentors.
The Game Challenge is different every year and this year’s Mission: Deep Space was especially fun. The team had to build a robot to install “hatch panels” (large disks) on a three story rocket and a horizontal cargo ship. Then they had to load up the rocket and ship with “cargo” (orange balls) to score points. To make it harder, the beginning of each of the 12 qualification matches opened with a “sandstorm” (without the teams being able to see any of the field)! At the end of each match the robots had to get back to their Habitation Zone and climb up onto a 3, 9, or 24 inch high platform which scored even more points for their team.
The game animation may be watched at the link below to get a better idea of what the team had to accomplish in just six short weeks.
Project Y’s scores during the 12 qualification and 6 elimination matches in El Paso currently places the team 6th out of roughly 180 teams in the New Mexico/Texas District. They compete this very next weekend in their 2nd District Event in Amarillo, Tex., and if they do equally well there, Project Y will get an invitation to the District Championships in Austin, Tex. If they do well there, maybe they’ll be off to the world championship. In addition the team won GM’s Industrial Design Award, which gives them even more district points to round out a very successful weekend.
Team 4153, Project Y is a LAHS team that is part of the FIRST Robotics Competition which includes nearly 8,000 teams worldwide. We are grateful to our financial sponsors, ASME, Los Alamos National Bank, Los Alamos Public Schools, and Los Alamos National Lab. Special thanks to Trinity on the Hill for making practice space available to us.