Nemesis Starts Robbinsville High School’s First FTC Team

Fifteen students, a challenge, and a robot. In October 2017, Robbinsville High School’s (RHS) FIRST Robotics Team FRC 2590, Nemesis, started a First Tech Challenge (FTC) team 14020, Nemesis Prime. FTC is a branch of FIRST for students from ages 12 to 18. These students develop important skills in the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) fields. Each year at kickoff, a new game is revealed and the season begins.

This year’s challenge, Relic Recovery, features two alliances whose goal is to organize foam blocks into one of six patterns to score points. FTC freshman Rugved Dikay explained the game as “a journey through a Pharaoh’s Tomb”. During the first thirty seconds of the game, known as the autonomous period, robots are controlled by pre-programmed instructions. The final two minutes, the robots zip around at the drivers command.

In preparation for their first competition, Nemesis Prime sought out help from members of Nemesis to give them a head start. Students from Nemesis aided Nemesis Prime members in areas of coding, driving, and building the robot. Mentors from the marketing team taught them how to present with confidence. All involved were rewarded a sense of leadership. Student mentor Matt Began shared his thoughts on Nemesis Prime, “Watching them persevere through obstacles gave me hope for FTC’s future.” Nemesis also shares their facilities and donated both financial and material resources to ensure the success of the FTC inaugural season.

Starting Nemesis Prime was a bold move for Nemesis. Their first competition was nerve wracking, and exciting. Members were swallowed by panic when the robot failed to work during the autonomous period. With fire in their eyes, the drivers managed to make up for what they lost during the driver operated period.

Nemesis Prime learned some valuable lessons so far this season. FTC freshman, Ashrith Pagedemarry, shared, “I have gotten a lot of hands-on experience and learned a lot from this program.” Nemesis looks forward to the rest of the FTC season and wishes Nemesis Prime the best of luck.