Rookie FTC Team Earns Advancement to State Championship
The Vikes are a newly established rookie FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team from Atlantic City High School, founded in the fall of 2023 in collaboration with South Jersey Robotics. The FTC robotics competition is an intermediate program that offers an affordable and accessible opportunity for high schools to engage in FIRST. Geared towards high school-aged youth, teams design robots to compete in an annual challenge centered around real-world robotic issues in an exciting and fast-paced game. Teams are evaluated not only on their robots’ performance on the field but also on aspects such as teamwork, Gracious Professionalism, the engineering process they followed, community engagement, and innovative thinking.
Throughout the season, The Vikes have achieved success, winning awards for the highest score of an alliance twice. Most recently, at the FTC Southern League Deep South Conference, they were honored with the Innovate Award, presented by Raytheon Technologies Corporation (RTX), a prominent American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate. This award recognizes a team that has translated innovative ideas into reality, showcasing creativity, elegance, and uniqueness in their robot design, as well as demonstrating out-of-the-box thinking related to design. With a total of four awards since September, The Vikes’ accomplishments at the Deep South Conference have earned them a spot among the six teams advancing to the State Championship at Hillsborough High School on March 17th, an impressive feat for a rookie team.
FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology, is an international organization established by Dean Kamen in 1989. The program has a significant impact on STEM learning, interest, and skill development well beyond high school, making it a leading organization in providing experiential workforce development skills for STEM industries. For more information on bringing programs to your elementary, middle or high school, please contact kathys@sjrobotics.com
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