COLUMBUS, Ind. — High school students from throughout Indiana recently competed in an event that marks a milestone for a local robotics program.
Columbus East High School hosted a For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics Competition this past weekend — the first one to ever be held in Columbus, according to Columbus Robotics president and Team 4926 founder Sam Geckler.
“It was just awesome to put it in Columbus, first of all,” said Geckler. “The venue got really high marks from everyone. We got a lot of great feedback from teams about how the event ran. … We have a lot of people asking us to bring it back here. So hopefully we’ll get a chance to do that.”
Thirty teams competed at the event, including local Team 4926 or “GalacTech,” which is made up of high school students from the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.
While GalacTech did not win the competition, it received the Innovation in Control Award at the event. According to FIRST, this award “celebrates an innovative control system or application of control components – electrical, mechanical or software – to provide unique machine functions.” Geckler said it’s the first time the team has ever won this award in its nine years of competition.
GalacTech ranked 11th following the qualification matches and was selected by the TechnoKats Robotics Team from Kokomo to take part in their alliance for the event playoffs, he said. The alliance, which also included Area 5188: Classified Robotics from Terre Haute, made it to the semifinals but was beaten by the top-seeded alliance, which went on to win the event. The winning collaboration was made up of suPURDUEper Robotics of Indianapolis, CyberTooth of Kokomo and Red Alert of Greenwood.
For the complete story and more photos, see Tuesday’s Republic.
