Last Thursday and Friday, March 1 and 2, the Robotics team placed first in State, and took home the Inspire Award in their competition, which took place San Antonio.
The team of 13 students and Mr. Allen competed against a total of 36 teams to make it to the fifth place in their division spot on Friday.
“A series of miracles happened that allowed us to win,” Mr. Ritter said.
After the randomly assigned qualifier rounds, the top seeded teams picked their allies for the next competition.
“Originally we were in 5th place. But, the team that was in first place chose the team that was in second place to be allies with,” Junior Abby Flickinger said. “They didn’t pick us, which allowed us to move up to fourth place.”
With a robot prepared to gain enough points to excel ahead of the competition, the team continued to compete with grace.
“We loaned half our hardware out to other teams, even the team that was seeded first borrowed a computer and a brick from us. It says a lot about our people,” Mr. Allen said.
Since the beginning of the planning and building last October and November, Mr. Allen and Mr. Ritter have created a robotics program where the students are happy take ownership for the work they put in.
“What is most impressive is that the team is almost completely self sufficient. They are able to put out every fire, every complication, and every issue,” Mr. Allen said.
The robotics team will continue to impress all the way to the World Competition in St. Louis next month.
“We are redesigning parts of the robot and improving our documentation before worlds,” Mr. Ritter said. “I am so proud, they put a lot of work ad dedication into the project, and I am pleased that their efforts paid off.”
