This season has really been a wild one for the Lake Orion High School Robotics Team 302 as they have won as many Blue Banners this year as they have in their entire 20-year history.

Team 302 started the season with their first ever Regional Competition Blue Banner at the Miami Valley Regional Competition in Fairborn, Ohio. This win qualified them to compete in the FIRST Robotics Championship in Detroit. The Dragons also won the “Gracious Professionalism” Award, celebrating the outstanding demonstration of FIRST Core Values — working together both on and off the playing field.

Returning to Michigan, the team competed March 22-24 at the Lansing District Event in Mason. With their alliance partners Team 3357, The Comets from Grand Rapids and Team 6085, the Green Devil Bots from Brown City, they were the competition winners again. Team 302 also won the Safety Award and the Judges Award.

On March 29-31, they competed at the Livonia District Event. With their alliance partners Team 27, Team Rush from Clarkston and Team 6116, Cougar Robotics from Garden City, they once again took home the Blue Banner.

They also won the Chairman’s Award. This award is the most prestigious award at FIRST, and honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate, and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST.

This past weekend, Team 302, competed at the Michigan State Championship at Saginaw Valley State University. The competition was extremely tough, with 160 teams competing for the state title.

Team 302 fought hard and made it to the semi-finals on the Consumers Energy Field as a part of a North Oakland County alliance, with their alliance partners Team 27, Team Rush from Clarkston and Team 5436, The Cyber Cats from Rochester. They ended their run with a tiebreaker in the final match. Their final ranking, out of the 508 teams in Michigan, is number 15.

For the second year in a row, they will travel to the FIRST World Championship. This year it is being held April 25-28 at Cobo Center in Detroit.

For more information on the team, check out their website at www.team302.org.

— Team 302