Robot Creators

Jesuit High School’s Stealth Tiger Robotics program is up to the challenge this fall – the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC).

Jesuit team 4960 racked up a single-match record score of 498 on Nov. 8 in an FTC competition at Hillsborough High School. Overall, in seven matches that day, Jesuit’s two JV robotics teams, 4960 and 7667, placed fourth and seventh out of 18 teams.

(Homepage photo: Team 4960 members Trayer Musselman ’17 [captain], Patrick Coleman ’17, William Yount ’17, and Nicholas Verdugo ’18 at work in the Applied Technology and Engineering Center (ATEC) at Jesuit.)

This year’s FTC game challenge, called Cascade Effect, has over 4,000 teams internationally with competitions held nearly every weekend from September-February, and team 4960’s single-match score of 498 is the current world best.

For FTC competition, teams design and build robots with both driver and autonomous controlled behavior with the TETRIX or MATRIX robot kits. They are controlled by the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Robotic System with ROBOTC or LabVIEW software platforms.

In Cascade Effect, 160 plastic balls of different sizes must be moved by the robot into three rolling goals of varying heights, and then the goals must be moved into scoring areas. Click here for a video explaining and demonstrating the challenge.

Each match pairs two teams against two other teams, with partner teams for each match chosen at random. Neutrinos, a team comprised of students from several high schools in Hillsborough and Polk Counties, was Jesuit team 4960’s partner in its record-setting match.

The Hillsborough County R.O.B.O.T. League consists 23 teams. The Nov. 8 event was the first of as many as six FTC competitions in which Jesuit robotics, under moderator John Lacy, may participate this year. Next up is Dec. 6 at Middleton High School, then Dec. 20 at Keystone Prep, and on Jan. 3 a separate “Judgment Day” will be held at the Germany Library downtown.

The league championship is Jan. 10 at Saint Leo University, and the state championship also is at Saint Leo in February.

Jesuit robotics consists of JV Stealth Tiger Robotics teams 4960 and 7667 and the Varsity Stealth Tiger Robotics team 3164 (which will begin FRC competition on Jan. 3). About 30 Jesuit students are part of the three teams this season, along with several students from the Academy of the Holy Names. Click here to view the team rosters.

Please see below photo slideshows of Jesuit robotics in action: