State final for robotics ready for debut, party

May 21, 2015 by Jose Garcia, AZPreps365


           (A video of a robotics competition that was held in Dallas. High school robotics teams from Arizona will play the same game while competing for a state title.)

A new event that fosters ingenuity, sportsmanship and fun is about to cap Arizona’s high school sports season with a big party.

And the main attraction is robots. Prescott is hosting the first Arizona Interscholastic Association/Barrett Foundation state championship for robotics, an activity the AIA introduced this season.   

On Saturday, the floor of the Prescott Valley Event Center will become the mosh pit for high school teams and their robots as they compete in a unique game while music is blaring. A non-profit organization, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, organizes international robotics competitions for students, including the state event that the AIA will help direct.

This year’s FIRST state robotics competition is called Recycle Rush. The objective of the game is to place a recycling bin of top of storage totes that the robots stacked on top of each other.

The robots then have to recycle the "litter," foam water noodles, in the bins. Here’s a link to the program for the robotics state event that’ll give you more information about the game and the teams that are competing.

Thirty of the 52 schools that competed this year reached Saturday’s robotics preliminary state rounds. After the prelims, four teams will advance to the finals.

But to win the title, each of the top-4 teams will need to form an alliance with two teams that didn’t finish in the top-4.

The winning team of three schools will end up as the state champion. Each team received the same robotics kit before this season, but the design of the robots was left up to the schools.

“It’s been a lot of hard work but very exciting to see it all come to fruition this Saturday,” said Michele Staples, the AIA’s robotics tournament coordinator and projects and operations administrator. “We are thankful for all of our robotics partners, especially our title sponsor, the Craig and Barbara Barrett Foundation. It’s exciting to see what these young students can put together on the playing field.”

The Craig and Barbara Barrett Foundation is a Valley-based nonprofit organization.

Craig is the former CEO of Intel, and Barbara is a former ambassador for the United States in Finland. The Barret’s foundation received the AIA’s Champions Award during the AIA’s annual award luncheon last week.

It costs about $6,000 to compete during a robotics season. Sponsorship money will help offset the cost for teams in the future.

Saturday's prelims start at 9:30 a.m., and the semifinals are scheduled for 3 p.m. The live stream of the event will start at 9:30 a.m.