Michigan City Robotics Team Qualifies for State Tournament
The Michigan City Robotics Team has finished 16th in the state of Indiana after two district competitions and qualified for the FIRST Robotics State Competition! This exciting competition takes place at Memorial Gymnasium in Kokomo, E Superior Street, Kokomo, IN 46901 on Friday, April 15 and Saturday, April 16 from 10:30 am to 5:00 pm. Come and cheer Michigan City's RoboBlitz on. You'll enjoy an "electrifying" day!
The Indiana High School Robotics competition kicked-off March 18th in West Lafayette, and the local Michigan City RoboBlitz team excelled with 9 wins and three losses during the Qualification Matches on Saturday and Sunday. Their strong record earned the RoboBlitz a 7th Place ranking statewide after the first weekend of competition.This year’s robotics competition is entitled “Stronghold” and challenges Alliances of three robots to breach their opponents’ fortifications, weaken their tower with boulders, and capture the tower of the opposing three-team Alliance.
Two factors contributed greatly to our overall success in the Stronghold competition,” said Robot Drive Team member Ryan Wilson, a senior at Michigan City High School.
"First of all, we built a spare practice robot and that allowed our drivers many hours of practice at defeating the outer castle wall defenses. And secondly, the simplicity of our robot design allowed us to focus on a fast, agile and reliable robot. Some of the more sophisticated robots at the competition had glitches, errors and were generally slower. We just passed them by as we attacked the castle wall.”
High school junior Rishi Verma added, “Versatility and reliability carried the day for our team. Some robots were designed to do one task well, but we could handle several different tasks and our consistency allowed us to simply rack up points over the two days of competition. This weekend was the best I ever felt at a robotics competition. Being ranked in 2nd place out of 38 teams on Saturday night, right behind the national powerhouse Kil-A-Bytes of Indianapolis, was a fantastic sense of accomplishment.”
Coach Ralph Gee said, “On behalf of the mentors and coaches, we are extremely proud of our students. We continue to see students grow in knowledge and experience. The drive of each individual student to excel has propelled the RoboBlitz team to our current ranking of 7th overall in Indiana. We have one more District competition next week and we hope to achieve our goal of earning a spot in the State Championship tournament in April.”
As one of several rookie members of the team, Wilson reveled in the competition. “It was pure fun. Instead of constantly worrying about letting your team down, we had a great sense of teamwork all season to design and build the robot as a team. And I felt that if I did happen to make a mistake, I knew my teammates would have my back and pick me up. We trusted in our teammates and simply had fun.”
Michigan City Robotics Team 3936: A Safe Harbor After School Program
100 Manny Court, Michigan City, IN 46360 | (219) 873-2026
mcrobotics3936@gmail.com | roboblitz3936.com