The St. Mary’s Ryken First Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics team brought home the prestigious PTC Design Award from the FTC qualifying round of competition on January 21, 2012, in Aberdeen, Md.
The design award recognizes the team with the most compelling functional, aesthetic and industrial design elements incorporated into their robot. To win the award, the design must not compromise the practical operation of the robot and must compliment its purpose.
Students on the team are junior Tyler Dameron (Dameron), sophomore Michael Holmes (Lexington Park), junior James Kachman (California, Md.), sophomore Gia Lui (California, Md.), sophomore Brian Mai (Lexington Park), senior Shannon McPartland (Leonardtown), sophomore Chris Sydnor (Hollywood) and senior Kenny Zenthoefer (Leonardtown).
Their coach is Mr. Randy Gross, who is the co-director of SEDIC-Implementation (System Engineering Development and Implementation Center) at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
The FTC program is based on a head-to-head robotics competition model. Teams of up to10 students design, build and program their robots to compete in an alliance format against other teams. The robot kit is reusable from year to year, and is programmed using a variety of languages. Teams, including coaches, are required to develop strategy and build robots based on sound engineering principles. Awards are given for the competition as well as for community outreach, design and other real-world accomplishments,
