Franklin Robotics team headed to first regional

Published 11:36 am Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Sarah Conner, 15, left, and Cindy Mitrovic, 15, watch Donald Wintersteen, 15, change out the battery. -- Cain Madden | Tidewater News

Sarah Conner, 15, left, and Cindy Mitrovic, 15, watch Donald Wintersteen, 15, change out the battery. — Cain Madden | Tidewater News

RICHMOND
The students and mentors of the Franklin High School FIRST Robotics Team 1610 have bagged their robot and are ready to head to Virginia Commonwealth University to compete in the regional for this season’s challenge, “Recycle Rush.”

The object of “Recycle Rush” is to stack plastic shipping totes on top of scoring platforms. Teams gain significantly more points for placing recycling bins on top of the stacks.

Jatrez Foster, 15, works on modifying the charger to take the robot’s battery. -- Cain Madden | Tidewater News

Jatrez Foster, 15, works on modifying the charger to take the robot’s battery. — Cain Madden | Tidewater News

The regional contest will start on Thursday, March 19, and conclude on Saturday, and it takes place at the Stuart C. Siegel Center in Richmond.

On March 20 and March 21, the event is free and open to the public — teams only for Thursday.

More than 60 high schools from around the region will be competing, including the local Builders of Tomorrow (B.O.T.).

Qualifying matches will take place on Friday and Saturday morning. At 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, the alliance selection will take place for the final rounds, where eight alliances will be built out of teams of three, for a total of 24 teams involved. At 1:30 p.m., the alliances will compete in the quarterfinals of the elimination tournament.

The team will also compete in the Chesapeake Regional Tournament on April 2-4 at the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland.