This past weekend 51 student teams from high schools across Florida and the country competed in the South Florida FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center.
To the left of the convention center are tents lined up and full of students trying to get their robots ready for competition, each robot wearing its team shirt as well as some capes, masks and wigs. All in the name of team spirit.
To the right, there’s an arena surrounded by bleachers filled with robotics fans. In the arena, robots battle it out see which ones can stack the most recyclables in a container.
Zachary Kalb is part of Jupiter High School’s team, 1523 MARS.
“It’s cool just because you see all the kids' energy and stuff like that. They’re happy for other teams and it’s not just, like, 'Fight for yourself,'” said Kalb.
Stephen Cross mentors 1523 MARS and helped start the team when he went to Jupiter High. He now works at FPL as an Emerging Technologies Engineer.
“My experience with FIRST has helped with my career in building the skills necessary to function well in a work environment,” said Cross. “FIRST helps build teamwork skills especially as well as teaching students to learn for themselves."
Namita Khajanchi is the president of her team at the Academy for Advanced Academics in Miami. She's learned a lot about teamwork through this experience.
"It's a lot of stress but at the same time it's very very fun because we get to bond over the experience of building the same robot," said Khajanchi.
The teams had six weeks to construct their robots in hopes for an invitation to the championships in St. Louis, Missouri. The top prize went to the Ninjineers from Plantation.
