The event was so important to two Dublin, Ohio, students that they skipped graduation to attend.
“The state championship is the last time I’ll be able to compete as a member of team 1014,” said senior Saajan Patel of Coffman High School in Dublin, just west of Columbus. “And although I’ll be able to come back and mentor the students next year, it will never be the same high-octane and adrenaline-fueled game for me.”
Fellow teammate Steve Riley-Popovitch also skipped graduation for the state championship. He said, “My passion for robotics outweighs the importance of my high school graduation ceremony.”
During the tournament, both team members were awarded their diplomas by coach Greg King, also the school’s computer science teacher.
OhioFIRST is an acronym: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
Thurgood Marshall team members, as hosts, couldn’t participate, but they served as volunteers.
“We laid out the pit and playing field, did all the preparation work on Friday, then worked the concession stands and helped other teams with their robots on Saturday,” said senior Sade Foster, a four-year member of Thurgood Marshall’s CougarBots. Foster, co-captain of CougarBots this year, said the team “got me more into engineering and math.” She’s heading to Oakwood University in Huntsville, Ala., to become a math teacher.
The only other Dayton area team at the championship was Innovators Robotics, a community team based in Vandalia with members from Vandalia-Butler, Northmont, Wayne, Oakwood, Troy, Ohio Virtual Academy, Dayton Regional STEM and Versailles high schools. Team members work closely with the CougarBots
“We were at Thurgood Marshall for the tournament at 7 a.m., and left at 6 p.m.,” said Dayton Regional STEM School sophomore Colleen Fulton of the Innovators. Fulton, who started in robotics at a Lego robotics camp, then joined FIRST Lego League for three years, said “when I found out about this team, I went from Legos to metal in high school, and learned so much. Now, I want to be a mechanical engineer.”
OhioFIRST chairwoman Kathy Gerber said, “This year’s ‘Recycle Rush’ challenge was to build and program robots that stacked totes on scoring platforms, capping those stacks with recycling containers, properly disposing of pool noodles that represented litter.”
Teams receive the challenge with just six weeks to build and program their robots to their task with the help of volunteer mentors. “We worked after school every night from 6-10 p.m. to get ours built,” said Fulton.
State champion winners of the May 30 tournament came from Mansfield, Columbus and Centerburg (in Knox County, northeast of Columbus), but that didn’t discourage local team members and coaches, who feel that the cooperation among teams is invaluable.
Henry Noble, CougarBots coach, oversees the robotics program and Math & Science Club at Thurgood Marshall and was project manager for the FIRST Robotics tournament. He observed that many students receive scholarships based on their work with robotics and “From my perspective, there could never be too many robotics competitions.”
About the Author