Citrus County Schools

By Rory Croadsdaly, Brooke Hurst, Krystal Arndt, Jonah Weeks, and Joshua Seville

Recently, the Citrus County Robotics Club, also known as the Olympians, has participated in its first competition: The 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition Tallahassee Regional.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a nonprofit organization that challenges students across the globe to utilize their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills to build robots for an annual competition. Along with STEM skills, FIRST also teaches the concepts of “Coopertition” (cooperation and competition) and “Gracious Professionalism” (social integrity). The organization also presents countless opportunities for students, including scholarships, internships, and jobs.

The title of this particular season was “Charged Up!”. In matches consisting of three separate phases, there were two opposing alliances of three teams each. Robots were to place cones on poles and cubes on shelves. The first phase of each match was special, as that action was optional, but rewarded. Teams choosing to earn extra points for their alliance during this phase had to program their robot to automatically perform any combination of the tasks that would otherwise be done with manual control. After 15 seconds, the main phase would begin and teams would be allowed to manually control their robot. In the final phase of each match, the alliances would try to balance their robots together on a balancing platform on their respective side of the arena. At the end of the match, the alliance that had accumulated the most points total would be declared the winner.

FIRST hosts competitions globally. We had the honor of competing alongside 38 other teams, not just from Florida and the United States, but also several countries around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Pakistan and Surinam!

“The competition was a very unique and exciting experience. The intense concentration of working on the robot between matches contrasted with the exhilaration of watching the robot perform in the arena.”- as quoted by Krystal Ardnt, who was a Senior at LHS at the time.

Since this was our first time at a FIRST competition, we were rookies compared to the various veteran teams around us. Our team quickly adapted to the culture surrounding the competition, demonstrating both Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition inside the arena, in the stands and in the pits. From lending out tools to other teams to exchanging buttons and even looking to kickstart STEM in our community in our off seasons, our team demonstrated the qualities deemed worthy of the Inspirational Rookie Award which was awarded to our team.

Although we did not win, it was a good chance for us to learn. We learned about new techniques for driving, different designs and mechanics for future robots, and how to work together with different teams. We can apply these lessons into our future robots and get a higher position in later competitions.