News
Parker Robotics Engineer Most Successful Season
By the Upper School Robotics Team
From Thursday, March 15 through Saturday, March 17, one of Parker’s robotics teams, Team 3507 Robotheosis, competed at the North Super Regional Championship, with teams representing nine states. This season, the team designed and built a robot to play a game called Relic Recovery, which is loosely based on the “Indiana Jones” movie genre. If you would like to see more about the game and competition, you can watch the game video.
Robotheosis qualified for the North Super Regional Championship by winning the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award. This is the top robot award at competition and is for the most innovative and creative robot design.
On Thursday, the team set up their pit, gave an engineering presentation to judges and completed Robot and Field inspection, which ensured the team was using allowable parts and functioned properly on the field according to the rules. After nine qualification matches, the team ended in ninth place out of 36 in their division. For elimination matches, the team joined FTC Team 10435 Circuit Breakers from Waukee, Iowa and FTC Team 9956 The Knack from Hartland, Wisconsin. The alliance won their semi-finals matches and went on to compete in their division finals, which the alliance unfortunately lost. (Below enjoy a video from one of the team's matches.)
During the awards ceremony, the team received medals and a plaque, crowning the team and their alliance the “Ortberg Division Finalists.”
This was the first time that Parker Robotics has competed past the FTC State Tournament, and Parker was the first Chicago-based FTC team to qualify for the North Super Regional Championship. This season has been the most successful season so far for Parker Robotics.
Combined, both of Parker’s FTC teams brought home seven awards for a total of 12 awards the team has won since its first year in 2009.
We students on the robotics team send our thanks to Aaron Lee (computer science teacher), George Austin (science teacher), Xiao Zhang (science teacher), and Mike Johnson (former Parker parent and volunteer mentor). We send our extra special thanks to Aaron Lee, who spends more than 10 hours a week working with the students to teach, mentor and support us in our robotics work. Without the help of Mr. Lee, the robotics team would not be as successful as it was the past few seasons. We also thank the Science Department as a whole and the school for their support of the robotics program!
If you are interested in joining robotics and becoming part of the robotics family:
In Middle School, robotics begins in 6th grade and competes in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) program and is run by Adam Colestock (acolestock@fwparker.org)
The Upper School robotics program competes in two programs, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), which is run by Aaron Lee (alee@fwparker.org) and George Austin (gaustin@fwparker.org). The second program is MATE ROV Underwater Robotics, which is new this year and is run by Aaron Lee, Elizabeth Druger (edruger@fwparker.org) and Annette Lesak (alesak@fwparker.org).
Parents: The Upper School FTC program is always looking for members of the community who have any sort of technical background in programming, design or engineering. If you or anyone you know might assist the team, please contact Aaron Lee.
Awards and Team Members in the FTC Program
9410 Frank’s Garage:
Elijah Underhill-Miller (10th grade and Team Captain)
Anna Amacher (10th grade)
Jeremiah Boyd (10th grade)
Will Rantala (10th grade)
James Leet (10th grade)
Owen Bowers (10th grade)
Chicago League Championship: Rockwell Collins Innovate Award Winner
3507 Robotheosis:
Nathan Satterfield (11th grade and Team Captain)
Levi Sheridan (11th grade and Team Captain)
Adam Keim (11th grade)
Max Lewandowski (11th grade)
Cole Rodgers (11th grade)
Gus Caplan (11th grade)
Olivia Garg (11th grade)
Benji Gourdji (9th grade)
Grayson Schementi (9th grade)
Takato Muro (9th grade)
Matthew Garchik (9th grade)
Chicago League Championship: Inspire Award Winner
Chicago League Championship: Winning Alliance
Chicago League Championship: Control Award Winner
Illinois State Tournament: Rockwell Collins Innovate Award Winner
Illinois State Tournament: Mike Johnson (team mentor) Compass Winner
North Super Regional: Ortberg Division Finalists
Francis W. Parker School educates students to think and act with empathy, courage and clarity as responsible citizens and leaders in a diverse democratic society and global community.