Sixty-six high school robotics team competed in the
2010 FIRST Robotics Competition: Microsoft Seattle Regional at KeyArena March 26 –27. The Tacoma School of the Arts (SOTA) team, SOTAbots, is one of six teams from across the state to advance to the World Festival competition in Atlanta April 15–17. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
SOTAbots competed in six matches on Friday, March 26, and three on Saturday morning before becoming one of six finalists Saturday afternoon. The SOTAbots outfitted in brilliant yellow-green jumpsuits were hard to miss, and the team was not new to the FIRST competitions. In 2008, SOTAbots claimed the title Rookie of the Year in Atlanta.
FIRST robotics teams build and program a robot to play a version of high-tech soccer against robots built by teams from other high schools. Ken Luthy, one of the team coaches and a SOTA science teacher, said, “We have a really good robot this year, and had enough parts left to make a second one to practice after the first was shipped to the competition. SOTAbots team members spent long hours at school working on the robot and test driving it.”
A SOTA math teacher and SOTAbots coach, Rich Williams said there are a
bout 30 students on their team, and more than half the team members are girls. About 16 students and several parents plan to accompany Luthy, Williams and Jim Nelson, the third coach who is in charge of security at SOTA, to Atlanta.
The students now must raise the funds to go to the international competition. Luthy said, “We need donations to get the SOTAbots to Atlanta—and no amount is too small.
“We owe a lot to the Bellarmine Preparatory School robotics team which mentor our SOTA students,” Luthy said. “This year, our students mentored the Puyallup High School team.” Even at the competition teams help each other solve problems and fix the robots.
“Very enthusiastic SOTA students, parents and teachers showed up at KeyArena to cheer our SOTAbots in Seattle,” said Luthy. “It really helped to know we had their support during a competition.”
Foss, Mount Tahoma and Wilson high schools also had teams competing in the regional competition.
For more information on FIRST robotics competitions, visit the Web sitte at www.usfirst.org.