In the first year of the Robotics team at Eden Valley-Watkins, they competed at the regional tournament in Duluth, Feb. 24-25, and came away with both the Rookie Award and First Place.
EV-W Robotics are part of the FIRST robotics program which is through the Minnesota State High School League. Kimball has been aligned with the VEX program and is in its third year. The two programs compete differently and are on different competition schedules. But the principals are similar. Cooperation is a big part of the competition, especially as some teams are eliminated. If a robot breaks down, other teams often step in to help or to loan
replacement parts.
The brand-new EV-W team went to Duluth expecting to get some competitive experience, but not much more. Theirs was the first robot to be approved for the competition, and they did pretty well. The eight members of the team soon realized that they might come away with more than just a competition under their belt.
The team was ranked 39th at the end of the state competition. But they?Äôd drawn the attention of several other teams, in particular the #1 and #2 teams. Once the general competition is over, alliances are made with teams of three robot teams. The #1 team picked the #2 team for an alliance. Both teams, unbeknownst to each other, had their eyes set on the EV-W team for a third in the alliance. And so it was. A benefit of alliances is that each robot brings a different set of skills that can complement the others.
The EV-W robot being worked on at the FIRST regional competition in Duluth last month. Submitted photo.
EV-W can certainly be proud of their first-year Robotics team and coaches. In their first regional meet, at Duluth, they took the Rookie Award, and were selected in an alliance with the first and second teams (which places them in first place. Submitted photo.
EV-W was the smallest team there, with eight students and two coaches. Several of the teams had dozens of kids. The EV-W team had six weeks to build the robot once they received all the materials. It took them four weeks just to get the computer connected, leaving them just two weeks to build it. Their robot was sleek and simple, and solid. And now #6175 will be seen at Nationals, along with the top two teams from Minnesota.
The National competition is April 27-30 in St. Louis. There will be 600 teams competing. The state finals are May 21 at Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota, and EV-W has a ticket for that competition as well.