Robot delivery

Saturday, Aug. 8, in the South Parking Lot of UAA’s campus, the UAA College of Engineering (CoEng) hosted the high school FIRST Robotics Competition team, 568 (FRC 568), also known as “Nerds of the North,” which had team members who could not attend in-person calling in from Fairbanks and Mexico, to celebrate the team earning two prestigious awards this past competition season. 

Over the past several months, the team designed and built a large 100-pound robot to compete three-on-three against other teams’ robots on a game field the size of a basketball court. During the awards ceremony, the robot delivered medals to team members and their mentors. Participants were queued up individually in their cars and took turns exiting their vehicles to receive their medals. Of note is that several sets of siblings are Nerds of the North team members.

FRC 568 is a statewide robotics team housed at CoEng, which is mentored by staff and students, as part of its K-12 outreach programs and runs in partnership with the Anchorage School District. The Nerds of the North team was unable to travel to their scheduled Pacific Northwest tournaments in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The team participated remotely in judging sessions in the spring and summer, earning the Chairman’s Award, the FRC league’s most prestigious, and later being named one of three District Championship Chairman’s Award winners. Winning a district championship award normally qualifies a team to participate in the world championships in Houston, but the competition was canceled due to the pandemic.

The FIRST Robotics program helps develop business and community outreach skills aimed at inspiring future STEM professionals.

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If you are a high school student interested in joining the FRC 568: Nerds of the North team, or a UAA CoEng student interested in mentoring opportunities, please contact Vicki Nechodomu at vnechodomu@alaska.edu.