The Carl Hayden High School Falcon Robotics team won the FIRST Robotics Arizona Regional tournament, held March 23-24. Their robot, Angelica’s DREAM, is named after Fulton Engineering outstanding graduate in mechanical engineering, Angelica Hernandez.
Teams had six weeks to build a robot that puts as many basketballs through hoops as possible during a two-minute and fifteen-second match with other teams. Fifty teams competed in the event.
The Falcons had 10 wins and one loss in the qualifying rounds and was ranked number two behind Team 610 the Coyotes from Toronto, Canada who was 11 and 0.
Moving into the finals, the top eight teams select alliances. The Coyotes selected the Falcons, and the Falcons selected Team 1212 from Seton Catholic School of Chandler.
The alliance won four matches to advance to the finals. In the first round of the finals, the alliance ran into a potentially disastrous mishap, when a field management system failure caused the robot to crash into the opposing alliance ramp and the team lost the match. The Falcon pit team recovered quickly and the alliance went on to win the subsequent two matches and win the competition.
The Falcons also won the Industrial Safety Award from Underwriters Laboratories for having the best run pit, and the Innovation in Control Award from Motorola. Team member John Rangel won the Dean’s List Award and is now in contention for the national award.
The international championship competition will take place April 25-28 in St. Louis, Mo.
