The Los Alamos High School Robotics Team 4153 Project Y pit crew works on their robot, Jaws, at during the FIRST Robotics District Championships. Courtesy photo
Drive crew members for Jaws, the robot built by Team 4153, Project Y are, from left, Jason Pieck, Carter Noeninckx, Zach Koehn and Mei Eutsler. Courtesy photo
BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
The Los Alamos High School Robotics Team 4153 Project Y, and their robot “Jaws” are going to the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston, Texas.
The team scored well enough in their two district events in El Paso and Amarillo to be invited to the District Championships Apr. 6-7. Project Y ended up being ranked 27th out of 192 teams and is the only team from New Mexico to qualify so far.
Team 4153, Project Y is part of the FIRST Robotics Competition which includes some 8,000 teams worldwide. Financial sponsors of the team are ASME, Los Alamos National Bank, Los Alamos Public Schools, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church provides practice space available to the team.
“I am so incredibly proud of the teamwork and leadership skills that these kids showed—from the Pit crew who were able to fix anything that broke on the robot in record time, to the Scouting crew who spent a frantic morning scouting out teams they’d never seen before, to the Drive team who drove the robot, effortlessly scoring hatches and cargo right and left, and managing the robot through all three District competitions to get us to Worlds,” said Jim Tencate, one of the team’s mentors.
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 prior to their March competition.
The team will be busy raising funds for their competition travel. Upcoming events including a waffle breakfast May 11 at the Masonic Lodge.
Team 4153 and mentors out and about. Courtesy photo
Los Alamos High School Project Y Team 4153 during their FIRST Robotics Competition. Courtesy photo