Posted on May 10, 2017 | 10:01 a.m.<\/p>\n
Garden Street Academy Middle School students Julian Dene and Drin Ymeri at Los Angeles Regional Robotics Tournament. (Garden Street Academy) <\/p>\n
For members of the Garden Street Academy Robotics team, the adage that practice makes perfect proved a winning mantra that paid off with the overall top honors at the recent 19th annual Greater Los Angeles Regional Botball Tournament in Burbank. <\/p>\n
Garden Street Academys Middle School robotics team took home fifth place against 22 other middle- and high-school teams. <\/p>\n
As described by the international program, Botball is an Educational Robotics Program engaging middle and high school-aged students in a team-oriented robotics competition, and serves as a perfect way to meet todays new common core standards. <\/p>\n
Garden Street's Middle School team is made up of seven students: Sofia Rakowski, Drin Ymeri, Erin Considine, Julian Dene, Kai Urbany, Alexander Burns and Owen Hartley. <\/p>\n
The High School team has three students: Adara Balabanow and Liam Klingensmith, both sophomores, and Natalya Foreman, a senior who will be attending the UC Berkeley in the fall. <\/p>\n
The team is small in relation to other robotics and engineering groups in the greater Los Angeles region, however with close camaraderie, each members talents are utilized. <\/p>\n
Relying strictly on their technical wizardry, Garden Street Academy managed to exceed its own expectations by winning the tournaments overall first-place trophy. <\/p>\n
The team refined its game plan with a final practice session in the Garden Street Academys robotics room, the day before the tournament. <\/p>\n
Adara, a sophomore and third-year robotics team member, said: \"Engineering is a possible future career of mine and I like Botball because it lets me see the software and hardware side of mechanical designs. <\/p>\n
\"I've done Botball for the last three years; in our first year we averaged nine points in the competition, and in this last event we got a high score of 78. <\/p>\n
\"While I mostly do it as a learning experience, it was great to walk away with first place. Even though the team is small, we work well together and were able to get a lot of things done due to the extensive commitment of all members,\" Adara said. <\/p>\n
The High School Robotics team won the Judges Choice Award for mechanism and strategy, and took second place in the seeding and double elimination portions of the competition. <\/p>\n
These awards, combined with their excellent documentation score, resulted in the local team winning the tournament and bringing home the first-place trophy. <\/p>\n
For more information on the Garden Street Academy, visit http:\/\/www.gardenstreetacademy.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n Angela Jevons for Garden Street Academy. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n More: <\/p>\n Garden Academy Robotics Programmed to Win - Noozhawk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Posted on May 10, 2017 | 10:01 a.m. Continue reading