Fort Myers, Naples STEM team brings robot to FIRST world championship
The robot’s name is WARP. And the Southwest Florida teens who built it hope the boxy machine speeds to a world-championship victory.
The robotics team Java The Hutts traveled this week to Houston, Texas, to compete in the annual FIRST Championship. The team’s 11 members earned their spot after winning first place last month at a Florida state championship in Winter Haven.
“We’re so honored and so excited to be going,” says team member Delaney Baucom, 16, Fort Myers. “There’s the suspense of the competition. But even if we go and we don’t win anything, it’s still just the fact that we got to be there that’s so important.”
This isn’t the first time Java the Hutts have gone to the world championships. They went in 2022, also, and ended up winning first place with their alliance teams in the Freight Frenzy category (along with teams from Romania and Colorado).
“It was a surreal experience,” says WARP programmer Almira Pratasenia, 17, of Naples. “We showed up and we were like, ‘We’re just gonna try to do our best.'”
Fort Myers’ Java the Hutts: ‘We make robots’
The Java The Hutts team has spent months working on WARP. That includes lots of late nights and long weekends at the Fort Myers garage that serves as their robotics workshop.
“I think we all share a very, very deep love for robotics and engineering,” Pratasenia says. “I’ve been doing this for seven years now.”
The team’s name is a play on both the Star Wars character Jabba the Hutt and the Java computer-programming language used by WARP. They’re one of thousands of teams in the international, STEM-focused program FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). They’re also part of the FIRST robotics category FIRST Tech Challenge.
The Java the Hutts have one, simple mission.
“We make robots,” Baucom says.
This week, their newest robot will enter a 12-foot by 12-foot playing field in Houston and compete in team alliances against other robotics teams. Their goal: To scoop up flat, hexagon-shaped plastic “pixels” and move them to a vertical backboard. The team that stacks up the most pixels ― and also gets the most points-earning color combinations ― wins each 2½-minute game.
The Java The Hutts ― also known as Team 14725 ― started working on WARP in about January. It was their second attempt at a new championship-winning robot after scrapping their first.
They’d been working on that first robot since about August, but started having problems. “It was a bit chunkier,” says team member Nikolai Pratasenia, 16, Naples. “The mechanisms were a little less refined.”
So they hit the drawing board again and designed an all-new robot. WARP uses a carbon-fiber frame to reduce weight, 3D-printed plastic parts, special Axon-brand servos and a camera to maneuver around the playing field and detect the colors of the pixels.
WARP also has an extendable metal arm the teens have dubbed “Extendo.” It reaches out to grab things from a distance, which means they don’t have to drive all the way across the playing field to get the pixels.
“The extension actually saves us time,” says junior builder Dhira Sharma, 13, Fort Myers.
WARP is small ― just 18 by 18 inches and about 35 pounds. But all robots competing April 17-20 have to be that size or smaller.
The competing robots can either be player-controlled using videogame controllers, or they can go into “autonomous” mode and move around solely based on programming. Each FIRST Championship game features two minutes of driver control and 30 seconds of autonomous driving.
Why Java the Hutts members love robots and FIRST Tech Challenge
Why do they do it? It’s all for the love of robotics and engineering.
“I just like building stuff,” Sharma says.
Sometimes they’re at their Fort Myers workshop every single day ― especially as competitions get nearer. “Weekends, we come in the morning and leave in the evening,” Almira Pratasenia says and laughs.
Her brother, 16-year-old Nikolai Pratasenia, likes robotics and engineering because he’s always learning new things. “You learn about different mechanisms,” he says. “It’s more than just robots. It’s about the skills that you learn, and teamwork also.”
The members of Java the Hutts come from eight different schools in Lee and Collier counties:
- Dhruva Sharma, Fort Myers High
- Robbie Stewart, dual-enrolled at FGCU and Bonita Springs High
- Advaith Menon, Dunbar High
- Nishini Fernando, Dunbar High
- Delaney Baucom, FSW Collegiate High
- Nash Baucom, Dunbar High
- Dhira Sharma, Canterbury School
- Jacob Adams, First Baptist Academy
- Daniel Rashid, First Baptist Academy
- Almira Pratasenia, Mason Classical Academy
- And Nikolai Pratasenia, Mason Classical Academy
Learn more about Java the Hutts at javathehutts.org.
Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him atcrunnells@gannett.com. Follow or message him on social media: Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
