For the fourth consecutive year, Grapevine High School’s Mustang Robotics is headed to the UIL FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) state championship.
State qualifiers were announced at regionals held Saturday, February 28, where the team earned second place in the Think Award, presented to the team that best reflects their journey for the season. Team coach and GHS teacher Anya McCarthy also received the Compass Award for Outstanding Coaching.
While robotics competition involves head-to-head matches that are played in an alliance format, teams can also vie for awards by submitting portfolios and presenting before judges.
For the Think Award, the team must present a portfolio with evidence of use of the engineering process, lessons learned, cost/benefit analysis and/or mathematical analysis used to make decisions. To bolster their portfolio, they can also include examples of how the team learns from mentors; recruited new people into FIRST; and/or identified goals and tracked progress.
The Compass Award is presented to a coach or mentor who demonstrates outstanding guidance and support throughout the year and exemplifies what it means to be a gracious professional. To be considered for the award, students must enter a 40 to 60-second video submission that highlights how they became an inspiration to the team.
State competition will be held Friday, March 20, at the BASE, Extraco Events Center in Waco.
FIRST, which stands For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is one of three UIL robotics competitions.