With four regional wins on three continents, the Barker Redbacks is attracting a lot of attention globally, as the team currently sits in the top 10 of robotics teams in the world.
In April, the Redbacks took out their latest Regional Title at the New York City FIRST Robotics competition. The team was also awarded the Chairman’s Award for its worldwide contribution to robotics.
Earlier in the year, the Redbacks was the only Australian team to compete at the inaugural Shenzhen Regional FRC Competition in China, where the team of nine students did a sensational job building a strategy to win the tournament.
In addition to that Regional title, the team also came away with the Innovation in Control Award.
The Redbacks again took out the Regional title against 28 other teams from Australia, Taiwan and China, as well as winning the Excellence in Engineering Award. At the South Pacific Regional the following week, the team took out its third title from a pool of 43 teams, and was awarded its second Excellence in Engineering Award.
“We are currently the only team in the world to have won four regional competitions,” says Barker College Robotics co-ordinator, Lael Grant. “Our students have put in endless hours designing, building and coding their robot for this year’s competitions and we are incredibly proud of their achievements.”
At the world championships in Houston, Texas in late April where they competed against teams from NASA and other world-class universities, the Redbacks made it all the way through to the Hopper Division Finals and achieved a final ranking of 10th.
With six Blue Banners in a single season, it places the team in equal second place for the World Record.