Whitewater High School’s FIRST Robotics Team earned the honor
Ferradermis, Whitewater High School’s FIRST Robotics Team, has been named the skills competition finalist – for second place in their group of 30 teams and a world ranking of No. 71 out of 1,302 teams.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), divided all of the teams who opted into this competition into groups of 30, naming each group for an element.
Ferradermis competed in the “Oxygen Group” with teams from 16 states as well as Turkey and Mexico.
Teams first had to submit technical information on their robot and complete a virtual presentation and interview with a panel of judges before they were allowed to enter the skills portion of the competition.
Then, teams could select any three of five challenges to record on video and submit for judging. Ferradermis elected to participate in the Power Port Challenge, the Interstellar Accuracy Challenge and the Hyperdrive Challenge.
Ferradermis’ combined final score for all three skills was 438.87 out of a possible 450.
“Many team members spent countless hours fine tuning the robot, running the video camera and resetting course markers over the course of the skills competition. It was truly a team effort,” according to a press release from Whitewater High School.
For more information, visit firstinspires.org. For a list of the winners and finalists from all groups, go to the website, click on “game and season” near the top of the homepage, select “blog” and then scroll down to “Infinite Recharge.”
In the press release, Whitewater High School officials note that winning teams are listed in order according to their team number with a smaller number generally meaning it’s an older team.
Ferradermis is the fifth youngest team on the list.