Tuxedo Pandas robotics team qualifies for worlds competition in April
The Tuxedo Pandas. Photo courtesy of Bill Sigafoos/VirginiaFIRST
The Tuxedo Pandas, a community-based team made up of students from the Christiansburg/Blacksburg area, was chosen by judges at the FIRST Tech Challenge Virginia State Championship as winner of the Inspire Award. Team members are students at Blacksburg high school and middle school, and Christiansburg Middle School.
This is one of the top honors in FIRST, and it recognizes a team that not only is a strong competitor on the field, but also sets an outstanding example through the conduct of its members in showing team spirit and “gracious professionalism” toward other teams.
The winner of the Inspire Award earns the right to compete at the FIRST world championship in St. Louis in late April, to face teams from across the United States and more than 50 other nations.
The Tuxedo Pandas, in only their second year of competition with FIRST Tech Challenge, are sponsored by the New River Robotics Association, and were among 48 teams from across Virginia that competed in a daylong contest Saturday at Richmond’s Arthur Ashe Center.
The contest, organized by FIRST Robotics, challenged student-designed-built-and-operated robots to fetch plastic rings and hang them on a rack, all the while being jostled by other robots.
The team is coached by Franky Marchand.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an international organization with the ambitious mission of transforming modern culture by celebrating science and technology and encouraging more students to be interested in pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education. By participating in FIRST Robotics, high school students qualify to be considered for more than $16 million in college scholarships.
For more information, visit www.virginiafirst.org.
– Submitted by Jim Babb, VirginiaFIRST
We also have this photo gallery from the competition submitted by Trish Downs.
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Amazing group of kids. Nothing short of brilliant. Our 4 year old aspires to be like her cousin Kallista. She told us after seeing the newspaper, she wanted to build a robot like ‘Wissta’ and be smart like ‘Wissta’! Great Job Pandas!!
Comment by Elaine — March 7, 2013 @ 8:56 pm