St. Charles robotics team wins regional competition
PWNAGE FRC Team No. 2451 from the St. Charles area won the FIRST Robotics Miami Valley Regional competition in Springfield, Ohio.
On March 11, the PWNAGE FIRST Robotics Competition team and their alliance partners beat out the other competitors at Wittenberg University to advance to the world championships at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Although the team had a challenging weekend initially, with continuous obstacles that hindered the robot and the drive team's performance, the team continued to work together improving the robot's code and function. In the end, they persevered, finishing on top.
In addition to their victory, the team also won the Engineering Excellence Award. This award is presented to the team that "Celebrates an elegant and advantageous machine feature."
Their robot has a unique intake that allows it to pick up game whiffle balls and gears seamlessly. This is a key feature to help the team score the most points in the least amount of time in this year's FRC Steamworks competitive game. In addition, the robot is able to shoot whiffle balls in autonomous mode and manual mode, hang gears on a peg, and climb a rope.
After the team's weekend victory at Wittenberg University, PWNAGE has qualified to compete at the FRC World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri April 27-29, where it will face off against hundreds of national and international competitors.
The robot has been bagged and tagged, not to be opened again until the team competes at their next regional competition at the University of Illinois in Chicago March 31. The team also will be traveling to Wisconsin to compete in the Seven Rivers Regional Competition April 14-15, in La Crosse, Wis. In the meantime, PWNAGE team members are working on improving the robot programming and fine tuning how the team plays this year's game.
FIRST Robotics competitions are the varsity Sport for the Mind. It combines the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. Under strict rules, limited resources, and time limits, teams ranging from less than 10 to over 50 or more high school aged students are challenged to raise funds, design a team "brand," hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors. It's as close to "real-world engineering" as a student can get. Volunteer professional mentors lend their time and talents to guide each team while building the students' knowledge and engineering capabilities.
Most FRC teams are sponsored by local high school districts. PWNAGE is supported by the Youth Robotics and STEM Education Foundation 501(c)3, Genesis Automation in St. Charles along with other key and generous sponsors. PWNAGE Team 2451 robotics is unique because it is comprised of home school students, students from over 10 Fox Valley High Schools, and surrounding Chicago western suburbs.
PWNAGE team members are involved in every aspect of the program including robot design, production, programing, marketing, videography, animation, and much more. They will readily admit, none of this success would have been possible without the support of their volunteers, mentors and sponsors. Genesis Automation offers their assistance to the team by graciously donating an area of their facility to the students to build, practice, store their robots as well as provide dedicated engineers to PWNAGE during build season. Their support is invaluable to the success of this team.
PWNAGE Team members include: Ally Bowgren, Jennifer Bozich, Baillie Caldwell, Claire Caldwell, Alex Caswell Jr., Josh Drexler, David Ellers, Christina Faulkner, Luke Feeney, Axel Gallegos, Justin Gallegos, Peter Garnache, Maribel Gonzalez, Brady Hare, Rosie Johnson, Nathan Kein, Noah Konters, David Kovari, Reed Krantz, Donovan McKary, Jonah Meretsky, Dan Napierkowski, Colin Oleniczak, Jackson Sokolowski, Robby Spayth, Justin Suess, Alexander Vickery, Bryce Williams, Camden Williams and Danielle Yingst.
PWNAGE mentors include: Scott Hale, Kevin Ainsworth, Paul Hammerschmidt, Ron Faulkner, John Winans, Dan Lucka, Tom Blassick, Michael Bowgren, Kenton Cabiness, Jim Draus, Kelsey Draus, David Ellers and Jeff Good.
Visit www.pwnagerobotics.com.