Robotics team to go to state tournament

WINSTED — The Northwestern Regional Middle School’s robotics program will compete at the FIRST Tech Challenge state championships at Greens Farms Academy in Westport on Saturday, March 8.The high school started their team in 2011, and the middle school’s team started a year later.Both teams are part of the national FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics program.The middle school is part of the FIRST Tech Challenge program, which includes robots that are easier to program and much more affordable than robots used in the high school level FIRST Robotic Competition.According to parent volunteer Ron Trotto, there are 10 middle school students on this year’s team.“This program teaches students a lot of skills that other programs do not teach,” Trotto said. “I own my own computer consulting business, and I am seeing people graduate from college without many of the skills this program teaches. This robotics program teaches kids project management skills, which is very important. It also teaches students about the spirit of competition and teamwork. If you go out and compete, you have to realize that you are not alone. You are always on one big team.”The team number assigned to the middle school by FIRST is 6762.Student and team member Jacob Boyan, 14, said the name of the team’s robot is “Sarah.”“We named it Sarah because, if you hold up the 6762 sign backwards it spells out Sarah,” Jacob said. “I have gotten a lot out of being part of this program. I have always been interested in technology and it has been fun learning how to build a robot. The most important skill I have learned is that you have to be very precise when you put a robot together.”William Lovejoy, 13, said he has learned a lot about electronics since he joined the robotics program.“I didn’t know about robotics programming, functions and how they move,” William said. “I will be taking the skills I have learned with me as I go into the future with my school studies.”At the state finals, the team will be participating in the Tech Challenge’s Block Party game.The game is played on a 12- by-12-foot square playing field.Two randomly selected teams will combine to play against two other randomly selected teams.The teams will program their robots to pick up plastic blocks and move them to baskets all along the playing field.The winner will be the team that scores the most baskets.For more information about the Northwestern Regional Middle School’s robotics team visit the team’s website at www.nrg6762.org.