Competition

Florida Tech Basketball is Back

February 19, 2021 by theCrimson 1 Comment

Elena Ciulli | Staff Writer

The Florida Tech women’s and men’s basketball teams are set to open the 2020-21 basketball season, starting off what surely will be an unusual season in program history.

Photo by **Edwin Ariel Valladares** from **Pexels**

The Panthers are one of seven schools from the Sunshine State Conference scheduled to compete. Only a partial schedule has been made available, listing games through March 13. All game dates and times are subject to change.

The women’s team was the first to hit the hardwood on Feb. 5, starting off with a 64-57 win over Florida Southern. This marked the program’s first game in 339 days.

The team is under the same management as last year. Coach John Reynolds is in command, with Aerial Wilson as assistant coach.

In their opening game, three Panthers scored double figures. First in the list, Severine Uggen with 15 points, followed by newcomers Aiste Vaitekunaite and Zoe Murphy helping the team with 14 and 13 points. The Panthers followed up with two losses and one win.

“Our first game was a bit tough after not playing since March 2020. So, I’m positive that we can do so much better. I think we have a great team this year,” Uggen said. “A good stretch with shooters and inside players, and an overall good team chemistry. I’m very grateful that we get to play again, and I just hope everybody stays safe”.

Head coach Reynolds said he was satisfied with the team’s performance, regardless of the cold environment of an empty gym.

“One thing that was a bit weird is playing without fans,” Reynolds said. “Without the fans, and without the buzz in the gym, it’s so different.”

Florida Tech policy prohibits spectators from attending any sporting events this year, including all basketball games.

The Lady Panthers’ next game will be Saturday, Feb. 20 against Saint Leo. Live stream will be available.

Local robotics team to compete in Houston

March 26, 2019 by Seamus Burns Leave a Comment

Voltage team during a repair in the middle of an event. Photo // Will Davies.

For the second time in three years, local Melbourne robotics team “Voltage” will be attending the FIRST Championship Houston competition in Texas.

The robotics season officially began in January and after their six-week building period, the robots competed with other Florida teams at the UCF stadium to start the year.

The teams are hosted at high schools around the area, and the closest one to campus is the Voltage team.

Florida Tech has its own Vex robotics team, which differs from FCH in size and other aspects.

Ripley Smith, a current Florida Tech student, and Will Davies, a Florida Tech alumni, both mentor the local high school team and have been in robotics for a long time.

“There are a literally thousands of schools across America that participate in FCH and Vex, but I prefer FCH because there is more you can do and bigger scale parts that use industry systems in the real world,” Davies said.

The robotics high school program allows mentors from any background that have helpful engineering knowledge and have no age restrictions.

Davies has been doing robotics since 2006 and he mentored the Voltage team during his entire time enrolled at Florida Tech and afterward staying in Melbourne.

“Robotics has programs such as FTC, First Tech Challenge, and FLL, First Lego League, that potentially could have somebody doing robotics from grade school past college,” Davies said.

Smith discovered Voltage while still living in Georgia competing for robotics during high school, and she has been involved since 2005.

Smith said, “Robotics is definitely a big part of my life since I’ve been doing it so long, and finding Voltage persuaded me to come to Florida Tech.”

Smith is currently president of the First Robotics Club here at Florida Tech.

While the club currently consists of only a couple members, Smith said emails are being exchanged with more students that are interested.

Florida Tech also has a FIRST scholarship for inspiring and recognition in science and technology, which Smith won through her robotics team in Atlanta.

Smith is working to bring FCH robotics to Florida Tech.

“It is also a great opportunity for collaboration and integrating communities,” Smith said. “There were some schools in Orlando that needed help finishing their robot in time, which we gladly provided.”

Davies said, “I’m excited. This year we upgraded with brush-less motors that are faster and stronger and lidar sensors for better visual processing.”

The first 15 seconds of competition are automated. Then, the remaining two minutes are spent controlling the robot on the course to collect as many points as possible by completing tasks.

Kevben Belastegui, a junior in mechanical engineering, competes on a team called Moose 1065.

“I could have went and joined Voltage, but in my opinion, I think Moose is handled and driven more by their mentors rather than helping the students and letting them run the team,” Belastegui said. “So it is more fun for me on Moose.”

FCH has programs available for mentors and students in schools’ extracurricular programs globally.

The season goes until May when they have their finals in Houston and about 5,000 students of teams from all over the world will be displaying their robots for the final point tally.

At each region, there are around 60 teams, which is about the number of teams that were at UCF.

Florida is a regional state as opposed to a district state such as Georgia and countries like Australia.

For district states, winning a district will earn a ticket to Championship Houston but for regional states, it is a bit more difficult as they typically have fewer number teams attending and have other contests to win to make it to Championship Houston, more than just point total.

According to Smith, the Chairman’s award is the most prestigious. “The award goes to the team that impacts robotics the most outside of the competition, so one year the team that won it hosted a drone competition that was set up for their community”.

Smith hopes to integrate the robotics community with Florida Tech further in the future and Alumni such as Will Davies and Daniel Kemp successfully represent the Florida Tech with their help mentoring the team, and mentoring a team is as easy as being passionate for robotics.

“People such as Lonnie Johnson, who owns the patents for nerf guns and super soakers, and Dean Kamen, who owns patent for the segway, attend worlds consistently and appear at competitions all the time,” said Smith.

“Our success is well celebrated and we’re all happy to go to [Championship Houston], but there was a lot of success in our whole area which we work with, so there is a lot to be glad about,” said Davis.

Cheer and dance teams take home awards and experience

February 17, 2019 by David Thompson Leave a Comment

Florida Tech’s cheer and dance teams competed at the 2019 Universal Cheer Association and Dance Team National Championship Jan. 18 through Jan. 20.

The dance team competed in the “open palm” competition, while the cheer team participated in the “D2 small co-ed” competition.

Cheer made it to finals for the first round and then were ranked sixth in the nation.

Head coach Alexa Flutie-Sumner said this was the cheer team’s second year competing.

“They got presented a trophy,” Flutie-Sumner said. “We are now nationally ranked, so we’re very excited about that.”

Flutie-Sumner said the dance team did well but had a lot more competition than the cheer team.

“My dance team is still new, too,” Flutie-Sumner said. “We’re still developing it. But they scored a 93 in their score sheets, which is very exceptional. However, we did not make it to finals and we did not get ranked.”

The dance team’s score went up by 15 points from last year, according to Flutie-Sumner.

“We had a lot of technical style of dance this year,” Flutie-Sumner said, “which we haven’t in the past, which really increased our score.”

Flutie-Sumner said cheer competed against about 13 other teams and dance competed against 16.

Amber Palmer, a graduated psychology major and cheerleader, said it was “one of the best feelings” when it was announced they made it to the finals and then were ranked sixth in the nation.

“Our entire team went crazy, and I even cried because we had come so far and worked so hard,” Palmer said. “There’s really no better feeling than your hard work paying off and accomplishing so many goals as a team.”

Juliana Burgos, a senior studying chemical engineering and an original member of Florida Tech’s dance team, said they put on their best dance performance to date at the competition.

“When the dance team started it was more about figuring out how to integrate ourselves into the school and create the foundation for future years,” Burgos said. “Now we have amazing opportunities like competing at UDA College Nationals.”

The practices leading up to the UDA and UCA College Nationals were difficult, according to Palmer.

“We had practice almost every day for the entire two weeks before competition, and each would last anywhere from three to six hours,” Palmer said.

The dance team’s practices leading up to the competition were focused on performance and energy, according to Burgos.

Palmer said her time on the cheer team wasn’t always easy, but it was worth it.

“Overall, my experience has been great,” Palmer said. “I’ve learned so much from my coach and made some lifelong friends.”