ISD’s FBI Competes at 2016 Greater KC Regional Robotics Competition

Featuring 30 students from Truman, Van Horn and William Chrisman, ISD FBI members have worked very hard creating the ultimate robot. The FIRST Bots of Independence (FBI), the district’s robotics team, built their ‘bot’ for the 2016 Greater Kansas City Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, March 11-12 on the MCC Business and Technology Campus (1775 Universal Ave.). Using aluminum, sheet metal and plastic, the students had six weeks to design, build and program their robot to compete against nearly 60 other high school teams from across the metropolitan area.

This year’s FIRST Robotics Competition has a medieval-like theme- robots need to lift and throw boulders at the opposing team’s watch tower and break through their defense to score points. Called STRONGHOLD, the course features more than 10,000 possible configurations.

“Students have really been working hard, not only on our competition robot, but our practice robot as well,” said Lisa Randolph, one of the four district robotics coaches.

FIRST (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology) Robotics is an international competition for high school students in grades nine through 12.