Staff Reports | Community Updates
An all-girl robotics team from Mesa earned the top award at this year’s CREATE Jr US Open World Championship, a robotics competition held in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on April 3-5.
Alexis Ngo and Tara Yuenyongsgool, eighth-graders at the ASU Prep Poly SPARK Institute, brought home both the Honor Award, the competition’s top award, and second place in the skills competition, according to a press release.
Ms. Ngo and Ms. Yuenyongsgool — the “Maroon” team — spent the past eight months designing, testing and competing together, but their latest robot, affectionately named “Johnny 20,” was built in just a week, the release states.
At the three-day CREATE Jr US Open World Championship, Ms. Ngo and Ms. Yuenyongsgool took Johnny 20 through a series of competitions, including the Skills Competition, in which teams compete to demonstrate their robots’ capabilities.
Johnny 20 is able to pick up as many as three small, semi-flexible, inflated playground balls at a time. The robot’s intake roller is hinged and weighted to guide the balls into a conveyor system. At the top of the conveyor, a flap helps to direct the ball down into the goal. Johnny 20 also features a sophisticated internal suspension system for easier movement and alignment.
Ultimately, Johnny 20’s savvy moves earned the team the title of Skills Finalist, a second-place finish among 45 teams.
The Maroon team — led by ASU Prep Robotics Teacher and Coach Matthew Chicci and assisted by ASU Prep STEM Teacher Crystal Funkhouser — earned even greater recognition with the Honor Award, which is CREATE’s most elite award.
“Alexis and Tara had to build an entirely new robot to compete in Iowa,” Mr. Chicci said. “It took them just over a week to build Johnny 20, and as the results show, they did a tremendous job. We’re incredibly proud of their hard work, and grateful for the support of the Southwest Advanced Prototyping (SWAP) Hub at ASU, which made it possible for them to attend this competition and earn such high honors.”
