The Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology robotics team recently tied for third place in the world at the Zero Robotics Finals. The team traveled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on January 16th to watch a live feed from the International Space Station (ISS) as their code ran on autonomous robots located on the ISS.

This was the culminating event for Zero Robotics, an international programming competition that culminates in teams gathering to watch the autonomous robots operating in the weightless environment of space. The seven members (Jacob Brown, Jordan Dobson, Carlan Ivey, Walt Loumakis, Andrew Bonar, Tristan Ricks, and Josh Whittington) placed in a tie for 3rd place in the world after going 3-1 and losing to the eventual champion.

The students actually compete as an alliance with three other teams. This year the RMSST team, named the Ohms, collaborated with a team from Philadelphia and and a team from Spain. The finals was the first time that the students met their alliance members from Philadelphia. The two American teams collaborated with the group from Spain virtually as they were in the Netherlands at the European hosted finals. They also had a chance to meet astronaut Cady Coleman.

More information about the tournament is available at http://zerorobotics.mit.edu.