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George Gannon, Arts and Entertainment Editor

 

On March 20, 2018, two CCCHS students competed at the Tennessee SkillsUSA State Leadership Conference.

The event was the culmination of two months of hard work, planning, and trial and error. Justin Roberts and Ferdinand Ngo were selected by Jon Spears to compete based on their teamwork skills and technical know-how.

Justin Roberts [left side, touching robot] and Ferdinand Ngo [far left], prepare their robot for competition.

The two were tasked with designing a robot and a C program to retrieve yellow cones and stack them as high as they could in an 18 foot square.Their robot was constructed from VEXRobotics parts and took 10 hours to design, 20 hours to build and 30 hours to program. Ngo programmed through EasyC.

Eleventh grader and construction supervisor, Justin Roberts, said, “We built it by bouncing off each other’s ideas and improved it by trial and error.”

 

 Their robot was equipped with a claw to grab the yellow cones and followed strict design limitations.  For example, no treads were allowed to prevent indentations in the mat.

Despite all of their hard work, the two did not advance to nationals in the competition. 

Next year, the competition will change and the robot’s design specifications will, also. Ngo and Roberts, though, will get to lend their advice to a new team, but they won’t be able to compete again.