The Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Program (ORTOP) recently announced the results of this year’s Oregon FIRST Tech Challenge Spark Invitational Tournament. 

Thirty-four teams, grades 7-12, were invited to compete in this year’s challenge, INTO THE DEEP, with robots that they designed, built, and programmed. 

During each match, one pair of robots and their drivers participate in the blue alliance, while another two participate in the red alliance. During the qualifying matches, teams are randomly assigned to alliances and earn ranking points based on their performance. The top-ranked teams choose alliance partners for the elimination matches. These alliances compete in a double elimination format that determines the winning alliance and the finalist alliance. 

• Motivate Awards
  • First Place: Team 27230, Artemis from Springfield
  • The Motivate Award celebrates the culture of FIRST and clearly shows what it means to be a team. This award celebrates the team that represents the essence of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition through team building, team spirit, and displayed enthusiasm. This is a team who makes a collective effort to make FIRST known throughout their school, and community and sparks others to embrace the culture of FIRST.
  • Second Place: Team 24261, S.0.S. (Scholars of STEAM) from Beaverton

• Design Awards
  • First Place: Team 4239, Viridescent Vipers from Banks
  • Second Place: Team 13727, Juntos Unidos from Hillsboro
  • The Design Award expands on this year’s challenge, inspiring teams to incorporate industrial design into their robots. These elements can be shown in the simplicity of the design as it applies to the tasks, the look and feel of the robot in how the design allows us to think of robots in new ways.
• Judges’ Choice Award: Team 26817, CC Rambotics from Portland
  • The Judges Choice Award is given at the discretion of the Judges to a team they have encountered whose unique efforts, performance or dynamics merit recognition, yet the team does not fit into any of the existing award categories.
• Control Awards
  • First Place: Team 25952, Beyond Tech from Lake Oswego
  • Second Place: Team 27237, Style Points from Hillsboro
  • The Control Award celebrates the team that demonstrates innovative thinking in the control system to solve game challenges such as autonomous operation, enhancing mechanical systems with intelligent control, or using sensors to achieve better results on the field.
• Innovate Awards
  • First Place: Team 267, EMP from Portland
  • Second Place: Team 14687, Undecided? from Rockaway Beach
  • The Innovate Award celebrates a team that has the ingenuity and inventiveness to make their designs come to life. This award is given to the team that the Judges feel has the most innovative and creative robot design solution to this season’s game. Elements of this award include elegant design, robustness and ‘out of the box’ thinking. This award may address the design of the whole robot or some sub-assembly component. The creative component needs to work consistently.
• Connect Awards
  • First Place: Team 4711, Ursa Mechanica from McMinnville
  • Second Place: Team 5627, Robotics Quasar Alliance from Redmond
  • The Connect Award is presented to the team that the Judges feel most connected with their local Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) community. A true FIRST team recognizes that engaging their local STEM community plays an essential part in their success. The recipient of this award is recognized for helping the community understand FIRST, the FIRST Tech Challenge, and the team itself.
• Think Awards
  • First Place: Team 21231, 42 from Medford
  • Second Place: Team 7776, The Loose Screws from Portland
  • The Think Award is given to the team that the Judges feel best reflects the journey of the engineering design process. The engineering portfolio is the key reference for Judges to help them identify the most deserving team. This team’s engineering portfolio focused on the design and build stages of the team’s robot and exemplified their journey as a team and engineers.
• Finalist Alliances
  • Captain: Team 19856, Almost Reliable Robotics from Portland
  • Partner: Team 267, EMP from Portland
  • This alliance of two teams came in second in the final match of the tournament.
• Winning Alliances
  • Captain: Team 25952, Beyond Tech from Lake Oswego
  • Partner: Team 20790, Hawkbot1cs from Beaverton
  • This alliance of two teams won in the final match of the tournament.
• Inspire Awards
  • First Place: Team 20288, Mechanical Mages from Portland
  • Second Place: Team 20790, Hawkbot1cs from Beaverton
  • Third Place: Team 23295, AURORA from Medford
  • The Inspire Award is presented to the team that the Judges felt truly embodied the ‘challenge’ of the FIRST Tech Challenge program. The team that receives this award is a strong ambassador for FIRST programs and works to promote FIRST and make it loud in their community. The team that receives this award has performed well in all Judging categories and was chosen by the Judges as a model FIRST Tech Challenge team both on and off the playing field. This team shares their experiences, enthusiasm and knowledge with other teams, sponsors, their community, and the Judges. Working as a unit, this team will have shown success in performing the task of designing and building a robot.