North Ranks First Overall At Robotics Competition
In the photo above, both North and South Forsyth High School show off their high scoring robots and awards. North Forsyth High School Students (featured on the left), (bottom left) Eric Laurin, Logan Swafford, Camden Roe, Chase Frye, (top left) Micah Davis, Jacob Nickles, Angel Mercado, Brandon Payne, Timothy Davis, Maria DeSouza, Joey Reynolds, Ramya Raja and Coach Jodie Marshall, are all ecstatic to have performed so well in the competition.
November 13, 2017
On Saturday, Nov. 4, North Forsyth High School’s BEST Robotics Team ranked first overall in the Georgia BEST 2017-2018 competition! The team scored well in the qualifying matches with an average score of approximately 350 points per match and were among the top four to enter the finals before becoming victorious in the finals match. Along with the first overall rank, Raider Robotics was also the recipient of the CAD(Computer Automated Design) award.
Every year, North’s robotics team competes and participates in several robotics programs including BEST(Boosting, Engineering, Science and Technology), VEX, FRC(FIRST Robotics Competition) and more. BEST, the robotics program the team ranked in is meant to prepare future engineers to solve real-world problems. Each year a game is presented, representing a current issue in the world. For example, the 2017-2018 BEST game, Crossfire, involves four robots (four teams) and presents them with a series of tasks to complete. In this game, a robot is able to remove hazardous waste materials, put out fire and rescue Manny the mannequin. The team rotated from a pre-organized list of drivers: Logan Swafford, Angel Mercado, Eric Laurin, Chase Frye and Jacob Nickles, who all drove the robot to perform the tasks in the game.
Along with the ranking first, overall, the team was ecstatic to learn to have also won the CAD award. Sophomore, Angel Mercado, tirelessly worked on creating accurate, computer designed representations of the robot, while keeping the measurements to scale down to the last millimeter. Prior to this season, North’s BEST robotics season had not had a winning streak in a long time; however, this success surely changed that.
Sophomore, Logan Swafford says, “We did a lot better than [we have in] most years… Our robot wasn’t as complex as the other robots, but our robot’s simple design kept it from breaking often, which allowed us to win. Most of the teams with really complex designs were broken by the end of the day.”
Because of their high rank, the team will be traveling to Auburn, AL on Dec. 2 in order to compete at the regional level of BEST.
