Earlier this fall, BFA Fairfax high school Freshman enjoyed engaging in the Aiken Engineering Challenge at UVM.
The students worked through a lot of trial and error to refine their design. The team even ended up changing from their initial design at the last minute (two days before the competition) when they were unable to fine-tune it.
After the initial upset from needing to adapt their plan after working so long and hard on the initial, rotating clamp design, students were much happier with the final product. They learned first-hand what engineering and computational thinking is all about as they developed persistence and adaptability.
Overall, BFA placed 9th out of ~26 teams. Not bad for a first-time team composed entirely of Freshmen!
The students involved in driving the robot during the challenge were Noah D, Robert D, and Brandon C. Other students involved in designing and building the robot were Hunter G, Jayden T, and Trevor M at various stages of development.
After the Qualifying rounds, an impromptu Battle Bots homage broke out and BFA’s bot triumphed! It was in this moment that the student engineers probably had the most fun of the entire event!
The FWSU Story 