Broadalbin-Perth hosts regional robotics tournament with schools from across the state

BROADALBIN, N.Y. (NEWS10) - Nearly two dozen robotics teams from across the state participated in the regional qualifying tournament at Broadalbin-Perth High School Sunday. It was part of the FIRST Tech Challenge, with winners advancing to the regional championship in Utica later this year.

"We’re given a challenge at the beginning of the year. We never know what it is, it’s different every year. They have to build, design, and program to compete against each other," said Jill Becker, the tournament director.

Among those competing were the hosts Broadablin-Perth, and their team the Nut Jobs, "I love being able to get out here and see all these amazing teams doing the same thing in completely different ways," said Robert Hernandez, a senior who's been part of the team since he started high school.

Students have been working on their robots since September, with this year's challenge focusing on delivering freight to different areas on the field to score points.

Four teams play at a time in two different alliances. After 30 seconds of automated movement from the robots, teams get time to manually operate them. The FIRST season allows participants to develop critical skills throughout the school year.

"The kids not only learn robotics, design in CAD and programming, but we also design in Java. They also learn, all these kids are required to do outreach. So some of them, on top of doing all of that, do thousands of hours of outreach every year," Becker explained.

Several participants from Sunday's qualifying tournament will advance to regionals at Mohawk Valley Community College in March. Beyond that, those advancing past regionals will have a chance to compete in the world championship in Houston later this year.