THOMASVILLE- The Thomasville Rotary Club welcomed the Thomas County Central CyberStingers Blue Team on Thursday, learning more about their upcoming FTC World Championship in Houston. 

Captained by Manthan Patel and Klayton Slusher, both the CyberStingers Blue and CyberStingers Gold teams have qualified for the FTC World Championship. The FTC World Championship is a prestigious event where top teams from around the globe come together to compete, learn, and showcase the engineering skills they have mastered in previous FTC (First Tech Challenges). The achievement not only recognizes the team’s technical abilities, but their commitment to community outreach, teamwork, and innovation. 

Each season FTC issues a new challenge, leaving teams only a few months to design, build, and program robots that will compete at the highest level. 

The team must first compete on the district level before they can qualify for state. At state, the CyberStingers Blue and Gold Teams both presented their robotic designs to judges, where they were scored. However, the scoring goes beyond just the design. The robot must then complete a series of tasks as part of the challenge. 

This year’s challenge took place on an 18×18 square. In the middle of the square was a submersible, with other pieces scattered across the floor, known as samples. The objective of the contest was to have the robot pick up samples and place them into buckets in the corners of the square. Robots could also gain points by picking up samples of the same coloring and clipping them together to create specimens. After the robot creates a specimen, it is tasked with clipping it to a color-specific rung. 

“With the game being as simple as it is, we can get scores up in the 400s,” explained the team. “Hopefully at the World Championship, we might get into the 500s.” 

Creating a robot with the capabilities necessary was no easy feat. According to Coach Brian Bellamy, the team has changed its robot nearly 11-12 times. 

But, it all paid off, as both teams have earned an unprecedented spot at the FTC World Championship. 

To put it in perspective, there are more than 7,000 FTC teams across the globe in more than 40 countries, with only 200 teams having the chance to compete at Worlds. Out of the four teams that will compete on behalf of Georgia, Thomasville has claimed two spots. 

“That means we will not just be representing Thomasville, but all of Georgia at Worlds,” Patel said. 

Because Thomasville and many other schools south of Atlanta have never been afforded this opportunity, the CyberStingers Blue and Gold Teams are seeking sponsorships to help them make it to Houston. 

The sponsorships not only help the team travel, but help them develop their robot to the level of other STEM programs across the globe. 

Bellamy explained after the state competition, both teams came back and tore their robots apart, looking for ways to make them even better and more competitive. 

“They are currently redesigning,” Bellamy said. “What they saw at state was they could score even more points by doing that. They have taken it upon themselves to reengineer from the ground up.”

Bellamy shared the strongest strategy is oftentimes not to re-iterate what one has, but to start over, and that is the strategy the teams are currently going after. 

Patel said the team unfortunately witnessed too many hiccups at the state level and felt it best to tear the robot apart, before building another.

“Schools from Atlanta have 30-40K in funding,” Patel said. “They are provided with all the needed parts to go to Worlds. They have all those parts before they even go to state; they can create custom steel. We are short on that, but we still have a robot that can compete with them.” 

Patel explained sponsorships help the teams purchase the needed parts to continue allowing them to compete against other STEM-based schools that have directed funds allocated. 

Bellamy said the school has been extremely giving to the teams, paying nearly $15,000 to help get the teams to The FTC World Championship, but the funds do not include parts for the robots. 

All of the parts, beyond the basics of what the team is given at the beginning of the season is purchased through fundraisers. 

“Because it comes from their custom design, it comes from their budget, and when they have been aggressive like they have this season in wanting to win, it becomes expensive,” Bellamy said. 

Taking the needs under consideration, Rotary President Marta Jones-Turner told both teams that Rotary would help them make it to the FTC World Championships with a financial donation. Members were also welcome to make a personal donation or purchase a sponsorship package to help the teams. Anyone interested in learning more or making a donation is encouraged to reach out to the team at ftc5979@gmail.com