One of 52 winners worldwide, McQuaid’s robotics team, the IgKnighters, won their grouping in the FIRST Robotics Infinite Recharge At-Home skills competition. Made up of five challenges, which were inspired by last year’s competition, the skills competition involved a series of obstacle courses designed to demonstrate robot agility both autonomously and with a human driver; identifying and picking up targets arrayed around a field; and a demonstration of how accurate the robot could shoot 7-inch balls through a target at various ranges.
With each of the 52 groupings named after chemical elements, the IgKnighters competed against 28 teams from 14 states, Mexico, and Australia in the Ruthenium Group. Made up of five challenges – Galactic Search, Auto-Nav, Hyperdrive, Interstellar Accuracy, Power Port – the IgKnighters finished first in four of them in their group. They finished fourth in the Auto-Nav Challenge. In the Galactic Search Challenge, where the robot located and collected power cells in two paths, the team finished in 10.8 seconds. In the Auto-Nav Challenge, where the robot had to autonomously drive along predetermined routes, the team finished in 36.5 seconds. In the Hyperdrive Challenge, where robots were driven remotely through four paths, the team finished in 49.7 seconds. In the Interstellar Accuracy Challenge, where robots had to shoot power cells into the bottom, inner, and outer ports from four zones, the team scored 44 out of the possibly 45 points. In the Power Port Challenge, where robots collected power cells and scored them into a power port, the team scored 72 points. The team’s cumulative score placed them in the top-50 worldwide out of 1,425 teams. The IgKnighters placed fourth out of 45 New York teams.
This is the first time an IgKnighters robot has won an award for its performance in competition.
A FIRST Robotics Regional Championship is equivalent to a state championship in sports. The IgKnighters will be awarded a championship blue banner to proudly hang from the rafters of the Wegman Family Science and Technology Center.
To all the McQuaid Jesuit IgKnighters, team mentors, and all the parents, faculty, and sponsors that support the team, congratulations on an outstanding championship season!