Pierce High Robotics Team Kicks Off Their Season
By Ella Gaes
The robotics team traveled to Omaha South high school where they competed in the Tom Dickey Memorial VEX Robotics Tournament, which was the first robotics competition of the year for Pierce on Saturday, October 29. Pierce competed against 46 teams and were very successful while leaving room for improvement in the future.
VEX Robotics Competition Tipping Point is played on a 12’x12’ square field. Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in matches consisting of an :15 autonomous period, followed by a 1:45 driver-controlled period.
The object of the game is similar to frisbee golf. The robot will pick up yellow frisbees and will shoot them into the goal. There are also rollers that drivers can spin to score points. At the end of the game, teams expand and try to touch as many tiles as possible with a string that shoots out.
The first team for Pierce included Travis Emory, Bode Hoffmann, Tate Reinke, Matthew Steffen, and Dalton Svoboda. Their team, which is named “ATOM13,” earned 14th overall out of 46 in the qualifying round with a 3-2 record. In the tournament, they fought hard but lost in the semifinals, which resulted in bringing home the bronze.
The second team included Bo Bockelman, Camden Jansen, Christian Nordby, Brentyn Rampone, and Amber Shefl. Their team is called “Running on Empty” and qualified 24th with a 2-3 record. The team lost in the first round of the tournament and finished tied for 16th.
Rampone comments on the day, “We are proud of how we competed and also figured out many problems we can fix for the next competition. Leading up, we weren’t prepared, but we still managed to do well. The day before, our machine had a malfunction where the intake compartment that sucks in the disc broke. This caused it to bend downwards into the mat so the machine wasn’t able to move. We decided it was smarter to remove the compartment from the picture, which overall helped us in the end.”
Coach Treva Dostal also comments, “I was quite pleased with the performance of both teams. Both teams were ready to compete in a tough first tournament with teams from Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri.”
The robotics teams will be competing again on Saturday, November 12, at Cross County High School near Stromsburg.
