Caldwell County High School Team Rock Rookie Year at FIRST® Robotics Competition

In April, two Caldwell County School teams participated in the NCFIRST Robotics competition. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a prestigious annual competition that challenges high-school students—working alongside professional mentors— to design and build a robot of their own, and compete in a ‘varsity sport for the mind’ that measures the effectiveness of each robot and showcases the power of teamwork and collaboration. Students build and program their own robots against a field of competitors and experience the excitement of science, engineering, technology and innovation.

Enoch Moeller, operations manager at the N.C. data center, and other Googlers provided technical assistance and were mentors for the teams.

Teams from the South Caldwell High School and a team comprised of students from Caldwell Career Center Middle College and Caldwell Early College competed in the competition.

The South Caldwell team placed 10th at the North Carolina Regional NCFIRST Competition, winning the Top Rookie Seed Award. The Caldwell Career Center Middle College and Caldwell Early College team placed 17th out of 44 teams in the regional competition. The Caldwell County teams were sponsored by Google and the Education Foundation of Caldwell County, Inc.

For more information, please visit http://www.ncfirstrobotics.org/frc/nc-frc-teams.html.

Pictured above: Rookie team the Knight Riders made repairs to the front wheels that had been damaged in a previous round of competition. Right: Team members Tyler Greer (standing part of transport team), Josh Tarr and Nathan Roberts (mechanical and pneumatic team); Background:Trevor Parrish (robot driver looking for tool); Center:Mentor Fred Wolf (retired defense engineer);Left: Ethan Hicks team member looks on, Freda Parker Lead mentor working and Kyle Wilcox transport team member looks on.

Photo credit: Kim Poole, mentor