On January 21, 2023, St. Mary’s Dominican High School hosted the FIRST Tech Challenge qualifier for nineteen teams competing to earn a qualifying spot in the upcoming State Championship. Dominican’s two robotics teams, Team #9637 Dominican Ultraviolet and Team #11526 Dominican Valkyries, competed at the competition and placed sixth and sixteenth, respectively. After the normal gameplay ended, the teams divided into four alliances for final elimination matches. During these matches, the highest-ranking teams serve as captains of the alliances. Team #9637 Dominican Ultraviolet became one of the four alliance captains, ranking the team fourth overall in the competition. After all gameplay ended, the winner was announced, and the teams attended an awards ceremony. The awards are based on a variety of topics that the team must present to the judges at the beginning of the competition. After giving a presentation and creating an engineering portfolio, teams are judged on topics like problem-solving, the engineering and programming process of the robot, and how the team reached out to others to spread the FIRST and STEM message in their community. Team #9637 Dominican Ultraviolet won first place in the Control category, second in the Connect category, and third in the Inspire category, which gave the team a qualifying spot at the state championship.
“We represented Dominican, placing fourth overall. Our team were women in stem with our robot featuring a linear slide. We had grace and God on our side! During the matches, we played with gracious professionalism and had lots of fun.” – Aya Elmadah
“My team worked extremely hard together following the last competition, and we are extremely proud of both our progress and our robot. We did quite well, placing 6th in gameplay and 3rd overall. I’m looking forward to the championship!” – Charlotte Raymond
Written by Emma Plaisance; Edited by Cadence Jackson
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