The Hart School District’s robotics team, Project 691, competed against more than 40 other teams at the FIRST Central Valley Regional competition held in Madera last month, bringing home the coveted Imagery Award.

FIRST stands For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The Imagery Award is in honor of Jack Kamen, FIRST founder Dean Kamen’s father, for his inspirational dedication to art and illustration and his gifted creativity and devotion to FIRST. The Imagery Award celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration from the machine to the team appearance.

Project 691 adopted a “top secret” theme this year. Students stenciled their logo on their robot and the briefcases in which they carry their control panels, and they made temporary tattoos, stickers and buttons with their logo. The teams trade these items at competitions. Although Project 691 welcomes students from all around the district, its membership primarily includes Academy of the Canyons and West Ranch High School students, which is where meetings are held and this robot was built.

The annual challenge is released the first week of January (broadcast on the NASA channel), and the student teams have six weeks to design, build, and program a robot which will successfully complete the challenge. The students have built robots that stack rings, shoot basketballs, toss disks, and this year their robot, “Project Blackwing” throws a ball the size of a Swiss ball. For more information on the robotics program visit: http://www.team691.org.