Tulsa Tech Students Take Second at Robotics Competition

Volume 38

Number 2

Spring 2007

By Jan Keim
Tulsa Technology Center

Sand Springs pre-engineering students Dwight Griffis, Brady London and Stephen Wade attended the competition with Tulsa Technology Center’s robotics team “Some Assembly Required”. The team competed with 44 other teams from Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska at the FIRST Robotics Regional Robotics competition held in Kansas City, MO.

The “Some Assembly Required Robotics Squad” traveled to the Kansas City Regional March 15th, 16th, and 17th for 3 days of exciting rounds of competition. After the first day of qualifying matches the team was placed 14th in the field of 44. During alliance selection for final rounds the team was graciously invited to ally with a team from Smithville MO and from Tri-County Tech in Bartlesville OK. Through double elimination final rounds the alliance advanced to compete in the championship round where they were defeated in a best two out of three final match to receive their second place trophy and medallions.

Tulsa Technology Center’s Robotics team is an extracurricular activity open to any Tulsa Technology Center student. The team met at the Tulsa Tech Riverside campus near Jenks to design and construct the remote controlled robot. Students from numerous area high schools attended after school meetings and spent many long hours designing and building the robot.

FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, Robotics is focused on spreading excitement for science and technology in middle school and high school students around the world. The competition requires that students design and build a robot for a unique task in six short weeks then compete with other students at regional events held world wide. The competition is setup similar to a sporting event where teams compete in an alliance of three on three robots.

Tulsa Tech Robotics Team

The motto of FIRST is gracious professionalism and the students display great graciousness when they often offer to help their opponent with replacement parts or repairs so that their opponent can continue to compete.

The event was simulcast via the internet, archived matches may be viewed at http://www.more.net/services/videostreaming/events.html