Fusion Robotics

By Ella House

FTC’s “Rover Ruckus” competition consists of a challenge that a robot must complete. There are three modes to the game: autonomous period, teleop period, and end game. In autonomous period, the team must program their robot to complete various different tasks to score points. This is all done without touching the controllers and takes a skilled programmer to complete. During teleop, two drivers that operate the arm of the robot and the wheels respectively use controllers to score points. When there are only thirty seconds left in the match, the drivers can then score points they couldn’t originally score in teleop.

CHS junior Bryson Jones is one of eight valuable members on the team. Jones was introduced to FTC through his mother, Sandy Jones, a teacher at Four Georgians Elementary School. Jones says that being on the team is a huge time commitment, but his time he’s spent on the team has not gone unnoticed. For the last four years he has been the lead programmer on the team. During that time, Fusion Robotics tied the world record for the highest autonomous period.

“The team dynamic is what makes Fusion so successful,” Jones says. The comradery of the team was evident at the competition. Even when they had pitfalls and challenges, the team was gracious, professional, and had smiles all around.“I was able to work with two seniors as a 7th grader. Their knowledge was passed onto me, and all the progression they made, I was able to see. [I] was also able to see the mistakes they made in the past so I was able to avoid falling into the same holes as them.”

Fusion plans on continuing to raise funds and, hopefully, make it to worlds again next year.Helena’s Robotics team, Fusion Robotics, competed in the First Tech Challenge World Championship in Houston on April 17th to the 20th. They ended up landing in 48th place out of 160 different teams in their division, but the year prior they landed in 20th place. Fusion Robotics is a team consisting of a wide range of students from thirteen to eighteen years-old Fusion didn’t take home a trophy this time, but are hungry for another round at the World Competition next year.