Robotics teams from the Commodore Conyers College and Career Academy (4CA) brought a little July Heat to North Georgia College by winning the overall top prizes at their final competition of the year. 

Not only did students win the competition, they also took home “Team on Fire,” award. 

The July Heat event caps what was an atypical year for the 4CA teams, who typically travel around the state pitting their robots against other teams from the state. Due to COVID, however, teams were limited in how they both prepared for competition and competed in the events themselves.

“The July Heat event was a great way to end our season. The students worked hard all year and it was great to see them get to compete. Some of our graduating seniors were able to come as well as some freshmen who had never seen an in-person event,” Coach Darren Hagler said. 

After both robots made the semi-finals each day, it was the bot that was designed and created last year that took home the overall first-place title along with their alliance partners -- teams from Suwannee and Marietta. 

According to Hagler, the Infinite Recharge game involves two alliances of three teams each, with each team controlling a robot and performing specific tasks on a field to score points. The game centers around a futuristic city theme involving two alliances consisting of three teams each competing to perform various tasks, including shooting foam balls known as Power Cells into high and low goals to activate a Shield Generator, manipulating a Control Panel to activate this shield, and returning to the Shield Generator to park or climb at the end of the match.

Kiana Wright, a 4CA student who attended the event despite having a broken foot, said that the bounce back from the semifinals was thrilling.

“The first day, we made it to the finals matches but we ended up losing both of them. However, the second day, we ended up winning the whole competition with our alliance partners! July Heat was a lot of fun and I hope for this to be a regular competition outside of the season,” Wright said.
The competitions are part of the Georgia First Robotics Competition, which, while pitting schools against each other in robotics competitions, also fosters “coopertition,” which encourages alliances and teamwork.