April 4, 2018
Rutherford County Schools
The robotics team from Central Magnet School has received an invitation to compete in the FIRST World Championship.
The invitation comes as a result of winning the Rookie All-Star Award at the recent FIRST Robotics Smoky Mountain Regional at Thompson-Boiling Arena in Knoxville, which featured more than 50 teams.
“(The Rookie All-Star) Award is given to a team that exhibits the potential to become a Chairman's Award winner, one of the highest awards FIRST gives,” said Marc Guthrie, an engineering teacher at Central Magnet. “This award ‘celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort, as well as implementing the mission of FIRST to inspire students to learn more about science and technology.’”
Guthrie added, “Our robot was not completely built and just looked like a pile of parts. We were able to get it put together at the event and did not miss any of the matches in the competition.”
Only four teams from the regional were invited to the world event.
Guthrie said “we are fortunate” considering it was the first time Central Magnet competed in the regional event.
Central Magnet had previously competed in BEST Robotics, but made a switch to FIRST Robotics. First Robotics is a global competition with more than 4,000 teams worldwide vying for a spot at the FIRST World Championship.
The World event is scheduled for April 18-21 in Houston, Texas.
For more information regarding FIRST Robotics, check out www.firstinspires.org.