Carmel Catholic High robotics team wins international prize

A team from Mundelein's Carmel Catholic High School partnered with two other clubs to win an international robotics title last weekend.

Carmel's NYAN Robotics squad - its name stands for "Not Your Average Nerds" - was part of an alliance that won the FIRST Tech Challenge championship in Detroit. Its partner clubs were from New Jersey and New Hampshire.

It's the first time an Illinois team has been crowned a FIRST Tech Challenge world champion, according to Carmel.

FIRST stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology." Based in New Hampshire, competition organizers aim to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology, the event's website states.

Teams design and build robots for competitions during a season that starts each September. Some 7,000 teams from around the world, including 193 from Illinois, competed this season.

Powered by cellphones, the robots earn points by performing autonomous tasks and tasks that require human drivers.

"It's not like 'BattleBots' where there is no autonomous (action) and they try to destroy each other," NYAN Robotics coach Brian Donahoe said, referring to the fighting-robot TV show. "These robots we design are smart."

The NYAN Robotics team consists of seniors Ricky Blaha, Tommy Donahoe and Owen Kompare and juniors Terri Brinkman, Brendan Collins, Andrew Frels, Ben Geoffroy, Allen Mons, Meghan Novak and Szymon Slowinski.

The international competition was held April 23-27 and featured 160 teams. They were split into two divisions and competed in several rounds of matches.

The NYAN Robotics team and its two allies advanced to and then won a championship showdown against an alliance teams of teams from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Iowa that won the other division.

Donahoe said he was "ecstatic" about the Carmel team's performance during the season and its victory in Detroit.

"These kids were and are amazing and outstanding," he said.