FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is the world’s leading competitive robotics program for primary school students, with more than 70,000 teams competing every year in more than 110 countries. The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is a program for middle and high school students where teams design, build, and program their own robots to compete with.
A local FTC robotics team called Java the Hutts is heading to Houston next week to compete in the FIRST World Championship. Last month, they competed at the Florida State Championship in Winter Haven against 56 top teams and earned the trip to Worlds after winning what’s called the Inspire Award. It’s the highest honor recognizing excellence in not only robot design and programming but also outreach and community impact.
Java the Hutts has been a team for eight years, with students from across Southwest Florida moving through program as some age out. This is the team’s third qualification to Worlds — they brought home the World Champion title once before in 2022.
The team is student-led, so they do all the work, have all the ideas, come up with their own strategy, design their robot and 3D print many of the parts, and then they program the robot to accomplish the tasks set out by that year’s competition schedule. We talk with three of the Java the Hutt team members to learn about their team, the FIRST competitions, and how engaging with robotics is helping them prepare for the world ahead.
Guests:
Dhruva Sharma is a senior at Fort Myers High School and Java the Hutts Team Captain & Programming Lead
Delaney Baucom is the team’s Outreach Lead and a junior at Florida SouthWestern Collegiate High School
Michael Merino is a junior Pine View High School and a team Builder
Tune in to this week’s Southwest Florida in Focus on WGCU-TV to see a segment with Delaney, Dhruva, and Michael and their robot “Han Not So Solo” in action in our TV studio. It airs first at 6:30 on Friday evening and then later that night at 9:00 and several times over the weekend. Once it's aired on Friday you can also watch it on our website here or our YouTube channel WGCU News.
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