Wildstang Robotics Team shoot and score in contest
The robotics team, Wildstang, made up of Rolling Meadows, Wheeling and Prospect high school students launched this year's season on a high note.
Earlier this month, they won the FIRST Technical Challenge which drew 20 high schools to the campus of Illinois Institute of Chicago, to compete with their table-top robots all built and designed by students.
It was the first competition of the year, leading up to the national contest. The Wildstang team won the national championship in 2003, and are three-time defending champions of the Midwest Regional.
"These robots are a middle ground," says Mark Koch, Rolling Meadows business and technology teacher and team moderator, "between the Lego League robots built by middle school students, and the full-size robots built by students, engineers and teachers, in the FIRST Robotics competition."
In this competition, the "MiniStang" robot had to pick up puck-sized pieces of PVC pipe and use them to score on top of a moveable goal.
This is the 13th year for the Wildstang Robotics Team, and Motorola engineers have sponsored the team every year. They return to help this year, including Andy Wald, now a Motorola engineer, who was a member of the 2003 Wildstang national champions.
In all, 54 students are involved this year. Most are Rolling Meadows High School students, but three Wheeling High School students and one Prospect student also contribute to the building and programming of the robot.
The entire team will gather at 9 a.m. Jan. 5 in the Rolling Meadows High School theater, when the game for 2008 is announced. The pep rally of sorts always draws students, mentors, parents and graduates to come back and learn about the new game.
"The group of students we have this year is great," Koch adds. "We have a large group of new students, and a veteran group of juniors and seniors. What we lack in experience, we seem to be making up for in enthusiasm.
"Of course we won't know the game until January," he says, "but we always build a competitive robot and I suspect this year will be no different."