Carla Clark | For The Republic Asher Lamb, driver, and Isaac Kannianen,operator, for Team 4926 GalacTech of Columbus, Indiana, during a qualifying round of the FIRST Robotics Competition held at Columbus East High School, Saturday, March 19, 2022.
A Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. robotics team is competing this weekend at the state championship for robotics.
Team 4926, nicknamed “GalacTech,” is one of 32 teams competing at the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Indiana State Championship at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute. The championship is being broadcast via the ISC Sports Network, Comcast Channel 81 and YouTube.
Per the event schedule, qualification matches began at 11 a.m. Friday and continue today. Play-off matches take place from 1:15-4 p.m. today, with an awards ceremony from 4-5:30 p.m. More information, including scheduled times for Team 4926’s qualification matches, is available at frc-events.firstinspires.org/2022/INCMP and firstindianarobotics.org.
Performance at the state championships will determine whether or not teams qualify for the FIRST Championship in Houston. According to Columbus Robotics president and Team 4926 founder Sam Geckler, 10 slots are allotted for Indiana. Three of these spots will go to teams on the alliance that wins state championships. Another three will go to teams that win the Chairman’s Award, the Engineering Inspiration Award, and the Rookie All-Star Award; however, the local team is not eligible for these at state.
This leaves four spots available, and at least one other team has already qualified for the FIRST championship already, according to FIRST Indiana Robotics’ district rankings. Geckler said the remaining spots will go to teams that qualify solely based on state ranking, which would likely require Team 4926 to advance to the semi-finals or even finals. He noted that they made it to the finals in both 2017 and 2019.
Going into the 2022 state championships, the local group was ranked 16th out of the state’s 51 teams.
