Robotics team qualifies for championship level
CRANBERRY TWP — The North Catholic Robotics Team, the Trojanators, put their robot to the test last weekend at the FRC Greater Pittsburgh Regional Competition, bringing home an Engineering and Inspiration Award and qualifying for the FIRST Robotics Championship in April.
The award comes with a $5,000 grant from NASA to help pay for entry to the championship tournament, which will be April 24 to 27 in Detroit.
Junior class member Thomas Franco was selected as a Dean's List Finalist.
The team designed and built a robot from scratch over the past school year and has spent the past few months attending tournaments sponsored by FIRST Robotics, an organization dedicated to fostering a passion for science and engineering.
Students and their faculty adviser, David Yackuboskey, met Wednesday after school to debrief after the tournament, discuss what's next and plan any logistical or robotic improvements since they participated in the tournament.
Yackuboskey led a discussion about logistics and robotic improvements that they could work on in the time they have before the tournament.
Students suggested adding weight and tweaking gear ratios and reflected on their performance. Yackuboskey helped students think through what would work in time for the tournament and assigned them tasks to address some of the solutions they proposed. Thomas said the group has grown from about 17 students when he joined to almost 40 students today. He said he was introduced to the team by one of its founding members.
“I was just like, 'this is awesome. I can't wait to be a part of this team and watch it grow,'” he said.
Thomas said this year the group has a lot of younger members and has successfully built interest in the team both in the student body and in the community.
Last year the team visited the Sherwood Oaks retirement community to present their robot and show residents how it works.
Back in the classroom, boosters president and mentor Tracy Polak reminded the students that they only have until April 14 to prepare the robot before the tournament in Detroit. This will be the second year in a row the team has gone to the tournament there. The competition is in its fifth year.
The team is primarily self-funded, Polak said, with local sponsoring companies Omnicell, Bechtel and Argo A/I.
