KEN GRABOWSKI, Associate Editor

Members of the Brethren High School Robotics team work on their robot to prepare for Saturday's competition in Traverse City. Teams from Brethren, Bear Lake and Manistee Catholic Central will be in action this weekend. (Ken Grabowski/News Advocate)

Members of the Brethren High School Robotics team work on their robot to prepare for Saturday's competition in Traverse City. Teams from Brethren, Bear Lake and Manistee Catholic Central will be in action this

Members of the Brethren High School Robotics team work on their robot to prepare for Saturday's competition in Traverse City. Teams from Brethren, Bear Lake and Manistee Catholic Central will be in action this weekend. (Ken Grabowski/News Advocate)

Members of the Brethren High School Robotics team work on their robot to prepare for Saturday's competition in Traverse City. Teams from Brethren, Bear Lake and Manistee Catholic Central will be in action this

Area Robotics teams ready for action this weekend

MANISTEE Over the course of the past several years, Robotics has been growing in popularity across Manistee County as four school districts now offer programs to their students.

This weekend three of those four schools will be sending competitors to events in Traverse City to test their Robotics skills against students from all over the state. Teams from Manistee Catholic Central elementary and Brethren and Bear Lake High Schools will be competing in tournaments.

For three elementary Robotics teams from Manistee Catholic Central, it will be the opportunity to compete in VEX IQ State competition from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in Traverse City's Grand Traverse Resort. Coach Laura Cameron said this is only the second year that MCC has fielded a team and they are excited about having three teams in the state finals.

"Attending the State Competition is a first for our school and we are excited for this experience (this is only our second year with a Robotics Team at MCC)," said Cameron. "We are looking forward to creating new friendships and learning more about this wonderful program from other students around Michigan. Some of the teams that we will meet have been to State and also to Worlds. I wish the best to all the children that are participating at Traverse City this weekend and I'm excited to see the Best of Michigan competing for a seat at World competition."

Winners from this competition will move on to the VEXIQ World Championship later this spring.

On one of those Manistee Catholic Central teams is team 93673 Legends of Robots and is comprised of third graders Jocelyn Howes, Selena Kosla and Alexis Logan. They are in their first year of competing in Robotics and took first place at a competition in January.

Another MCC team that will be in the state finals is Team 61325A-Spirit Bot consisting of fourth graders Holly Brindle, Trinity Hurford and Cory Whitman. They had a double qualification at state through their coding skills during the Autonomous Skills Challenge and by taking second place in the teamwork challenge.

The third Manistee Catholic Central team that will be participating in the state finals this weekend is Team 93673 with third grade students Logan Harvey and Reid Kieszkowski. They qualified in their first experience at Robotics with a second place in Teamwork Challenge and in the Autonomous Skills Challenge.

Also on Saturday the Brethren Bobcat and Bear Lake Robotics teams will be in Traverse City taking part in the Robotics First competition.

Brethren coach Mitchell Knoll is feeling good about his team's chances, but adds there is some apprehension heading into a new game setup.

"We are feeling confident with our robot at this time because we have made it capable of completing each of the different tasks before us," said Knoll. "Some of the new features that we've used for the first time are mecanum wheels that give us better maneuverability, a ball shooting mechanism that allows us launch seven inch diameter balls across the field and a climbing mechanism that has multiple stages where the hook detaches."

Knoll said they made other adjusts they feel will make a positive impact.

"We also added more advanced coding where we can have the robot make decisions along with using a color sensor when to have to turn motors on and off," said Knoll. "Another feature that we are excited to run in a match is our six ball autonomous, which is where we have the robot shoot three balls, drive and pick up three more and shoot them on the same goal."

That is a 15 second period where everything is coded ahead of time and there is no human interaction, so being able to complete the complex set of actions is vital.

The team has worked hard according to Knoll and he feels it is ready to compete.

"There usually is a steep learning curve, so we are hoping to jump out to a quick start by having many things solved and practiced a head of time," he said. "We look forward to finally seeing how our robot matches up against other schools."

Brethren team members include Eric Grismore, Justin Kissling, Jacob Hofacker, Rhiannon Gillis, Markus Jacobs, Erica Feller, Jeff Goble, William Pasqualone, Hannah Fitzgerald, Dekota Slawinski, Justin Moore, Nevada Wheeler, Ashlynn Wardie, Maddax Fitzgerald, Kash Peck, William Rubin and Aidan Wenzel.

Bear Lake will also be at that competition and coaches John Prokes and Steve Gomez said the team has worked hard to prepare for it.

"As we get closer the kids are getting more excited, moving past the design and build phases and on to testing and prep for the event," said Prokes. "The robot is ready, the kids are excited to compete."

This year the team consists of Trevor Eisenlohr, Edward Fairchild, Tai Babinec, Marcus Langland, Abram Smith, Megan Gydesen, Tehran Freeman, Tracy Bryce and Fabian Aguilar.

Manistee High School coach Troy Nezki said his Robotics team is not going to Traverse City to compete, but are looking forward to their first competition next week.

"My entire team is either on the swim team or Science Olympiad who are competing this week, so we can't go," said Nezki. "We are going next week to St Joseph and the kids are excited as well as quite nervous about our first event."

Manistee's team includes Matthew Blevins, Luke Herberger, Mason Schaubroeck, Titus Lind, Roger Lind, Brandon Sullivan, Isaiz Tomey, Griffen Antal, Kylar Thomas, Dylan Johnson and Anderson Johns.

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Area Robotics teams ready for action this weekend - Manistee News Advocate