Team #4153 at the Fort Worth, TX regional competition. Photo by Holly Trellue
Team #4153 at the Amarillo, TX regional competition. Photo by Christy Patterson
Members of the Team #4153 Drive Team with the team robot. Photo by Christy Patterson
Team #4153’s robot, ‘Upsilon”. Photo by Christy Patterson
BY CHRISTY PATTERSON
The Los Alamos FIRST Robotics Team #4153 Project Y has been hard at work since January to build a custom robot to compete in the FIRST Robotics league. Their first competition took place in Fort Worth, TX on March 17-19. They placed 8th in the competition and achieved the honor of being the 5th Alliance Captains for the finals. This was only the second time in the team’s history that they scored well enough to become Alliance Captains. In addition to their outstanding performance, Team #4153 was awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award for their ability to work well with all the other teams both on and off the playing field and team member Sasha Vinyard was chosen by her peers to receive the Safety Star Award.
Team #4153’s second competition was this past weekend in Amarillo, TX. They fine tuned their robot and this time secured a 5th place win, becoming the 4th Alliance Captain. They were awarded the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award, for advancing their engineering knowledge. Team #4153 qualified for the District Championships in Houston, TX on April 6-9. They will be competing against 80 teams from New Mexico and Texas, for a chance to attend the World First Robotics competition later this month.
The Team #4153 members are: Jason Pieck, Amanda Kitrell, Kendall Trellue, Noah Patterson, Phillip Ionkov, Evan Long, Cinyoung Huang, Alexander Watts, Eliza Lamborn, Sasha Vinyard, Nick McGrane, Clark Noeninckx, Rebeca Rocha, Andrei Maiorov, Titus DeJong, Minhtet Htoon, Linhtet Htoon, Luke Finstad, Sona Akhadov, Kam Akhadov, Ming Lo, Moroni Nelson, and Shane Tobin. They have been working relentlessly since January to design and build a robot for the Rapid React competition season, which involves having the robot (and a human player) shoot balls (cargo) and climb rungs to achieve success.
The team would also like to thank their excellent mentors Andy Erickson, Steve Sintay, Jim Tencate, Pierre-Yves Le Bas, Elroy Miller, Lucho Ionkov, Drew Geller, and Martin Pieck for all the support. In addition the team would like to thank Project Y, N3B Los Alamos, Enterprise Bank and Trust, Century Bank, Merrick, Brain Hackers Association, ASME, Gene Haas Foundation, and the Blackwell-Carroll Group for their generous sponsorships.
Team #4153 is open to all High School students in Los Alamos and White Rock. If you would like more information about Team #4153 or would like to make a donation to help defray travel costs, please contact Andrew Erickson at team4153.erickson@gmail.com