Winners of the Rookie All-Star Award, The Lightning Blue Lizards team traveled to the United States to take part in  First Robotics Competition (FRC) in West Palm Beach Convention Center from March 28-30.

FRC is not a regular robotics competition. FIRST, the company that hosts FRC, has organized this event since 1992 and has seen the evolution of the capabilities of many of its teams. In this competition, teams have participated for over 20 years. It is a world-class event that expects the most of the teams involved.

“FRC is a robotic gathering where more than 7,500 teams go to different regionals and participate to try to win a spot in the world championship in Houston during April,” Julian Zuñiga, Lightning Blue Lizards Mentor and TCS teacher, said.

The Lightning Blue Lizards had to face the many challenges that involved the event in order to make a performance during the Matches at the South Florida Regional. These trials required the work and support of the team in order to outstand in the overall ranking, and gain points.

“There are two alliances, the Blue Alliance, and the Red alliance, three teams that are chosen randomly out of the 64 teams, try to do as many points as possible. There are ranking points, and match points, the ranking points are the ones that give you the opportunity to get a spot on the world championship,” Zuñiga said.

The Lightning Blue Lizards obtained the Rookie All Star Award, award that is granted for being classified by the judges as the best beginner team in the entire competition by their set of attributes.

“The idea of this award is giving the first year team that has all the characteristics of a senior team. Meaning that they are: structured, organized, know what they are doing, and that their robot has a very good performance, like we did,” Zuñiga said.

Winning the Rookie All Star Award, can only be achieved on the first year of the team. Therefore, it was of great pride for all LBL members and school staff that were involved with the Robotics Team.

“When we were listening to the announcement for the Rookie All Star Award, we didn’t think by any means that we were going to be chosen from all the other 20 rookie teams that participated. I couldn’t believe it when they called the team 7403 as the winners of the award,” Sara Gonzales, team Marketing Leader and TCS Senior, said.