NEWPORT – AIR Strike, a competitive robotics team of 24 high school students from 10 high schools across Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, ranked eighth out of 196 teams in the New England FIRST Robotics Competition and has qualified to compete at the FRC World Championship in St. Louis, Mo., at the end of the month.
Only the top 37 teams from New England advanced to the championship. AIR Strike, organized by the Newport-based nonprofit Aquidneck Island Robotics Inc., was the only Rhode Island team to qualify.
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During their six-week competition season, AIR Strike competed in four events across New England, winning the Rhode Island district event and earning several team and technical awards, including the Chairman’s Award honoring the team that best embodies the purpose and goals of the FIRST Robotics Competition.
FIRST – For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology – is an international youth organization that hosts robotics and other tech competitions for students who aspire to careers in engineering and technology.
The FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship will be held April 26-29 in St. Louis, the 26th year of the international event. In 2016, 3,128 teams represented by more than 75,000 students from 24 countries built robots to compete in the championship.
AIR Strike, in its eighth season this year, built a 120-pound robot to compete in the 2017 events. Students had only six weeks to design, build and program the robot, and practice before the competition season. Controlled remotely by AIR Strike students, the robot can perform tasks such as launching projectiles, retrieving plastic gears and climbing ropes.
The AIR Strike team is sponsored by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center of Newport, the U.S. Department of Defense STEM program, the De Ramel Foundation, Raytheon Co., KVH Industries Inc., CVS Health Corp., and Rite-Solutions Inc.
Kaylen Auer is a PBN contributing writer.
