WildStangs robotics team from Cook County off and running
The WildStang Robotics Team won the FIRST Technical Challenge Robotics Competition for the state of Illinois for the third consecutive year Dec. 12.
The "MiniStang" team, consisting of 10 students, competed at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where 34 teams from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin attended the competition.
The WildStang Robotics team is made up of students from Rolling Meadows, Wheeling, and Prospect High Schools.
The game, called "Hot Shot" is played on a 12-foot by 12-foot playing field. Two alliances, composed of two teams each were to pick up balls and score them through a high or low goal. The alliance with the most scored balls wins each match. The MiniStang robot won all the preliminary matches and they were the highest seeded team going in to the elimination rounds.
The team also went undefeated in the elimination rounds. Partners in the elimination rounds were high schools from Land O Lakes, Wis., and Rauner College Prep, Chicago.
The WildStang students on the FIRST Technical Challenge team are: Josh Beller, Harrison Drake, Eric Himmelblau, Mike Lipinski, Michael Niehoff, Mike Rasmussen, Jackie Rohde, Eric Tornabene, Ken Vonderohe and Vince Zhen. The mentors for the team are Motorola engineers Shawn Hu and Andy Wald.
By winning, the WildStang team qualified for the FTC Championship, which is held in conjunction with the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship in Atlanta, Ga., April 15-17.
The FIRST Robotics Competition season kicks off on January 9. The WildStang team will compete in two regional competitions; the Wisconsin Regional in Milwaukee March 11-13 and the Midwest Regional at the UIC Pavilion March 18-20. The team will also participate in the Championships in Atlanta, defending their World Championship won in 2009.