Jefferson’s RAID Robotics team finishes strong at FIRST Championship
Published 9:00 am Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Thomas Jefferson High School’s R.A.I.D. Robotics team closed out their first-ever appearance at the FIRST Championship with a respectable 28th-place finish in their 75-team division.
The FIRST Championship — the acronym standing for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” — was held at various venues in St. Louis from April 27-30. More than 20,000 students from 42 countries met there, including about 900 students from Washington and Oregon, and the four-day event culminated in a Saturday night final competition in front of 40,000 spectators at The Dome at America’s Center.
R.A.I.D., which stands for “Raider Artificial Intelligence Division,” faced long odds to reach the championship event. This year’s squad has 14 active members, compared to other squads boasting 60-plus, and it spent about $15,000 total on its robot compared to many other teams with budgets around $100,000. Jefferson has only had a Robotics Club for four years, a fraction of the time other schools have been honing their machine-making.
Some of the R.A.I.D. team members realized they “were not the worst robot there and were actually really good,” said Tod Byquist, mentor for the team.
The team’s success can aptly be described as a Cinderella season — an appropriate sports cliche since FIRST promoters bill the robotics competitions as a “sport of the mind.” They rallied to a top finish at the regional qualifiers at Auburn High School on April 1-3, beating out 35 other area teams, then topped 63 other teams at the Pacific Northwest Regionals April 6-9.
