Team finishes in second place at Jackson District Tournament
By Jim Newell
Managing Editor
jnewell@mihomepaper.com
JACKSON — Lake Orion High School Robotics Team 302 finished as event finalists at the FIRST Robotics Jackson District Tournament last weekend, and also earned a ticket to the state finals beginning on April 3.
The Dragons were selected by Team 1023 Bedford Express from Temperance, Mich. to be a part of the second alliance in the tournament. Together, they selected 5234 MarauderBots of Ovid-Elsie to round out the three-team alliance.
The Dragons and their alliance lost in the finals to the fourth alliance, consisting of teams from Whitmore Lake High School, Camden-Frontier School and North West High School in Jackson.
“The alliance fought hard all the way to finals, finishing as event finalists. Our alliance also held the record for the top scoring match of the weekend,” said Leigh Ann Stone, an engineering and CAD teacher at Lake Orion High School and FIRST Robotics mentor for Team 302. “To top it off, we were also awarded the Excellence in Engineering Award, recognizing our team’s dedication to innovation and design.”
Each year, FIRST Robotics releases a theme for the robotics competition season, and this year the theme is Reefscape. Robotics teams design their robot to complete challenges and overcome obstacles on the playing field, such as placing objects like balls into a holding rack, or defending against other robots completing their tasks.
Teams for a three-team alliance and work with two other teams on the competition floor to score points and prevent their opponents from scoring.
The Dragons had the best autonomous robot at the event, scoring three game pieces in 15 seconds.
“The students on our robotics team have worked hard this season to design, build, code and drive the robot and it paid off at this weekend at our Jackson District Tournament,” said Stone.
With their performance at the Jackson tournament, combined with the team’s score at the Ferndale competition, Team 302 qualified for the FIRST Robotics Michigan State Championship at Saginaw Valley State University from April 3-5, where the team will try to earn a spot at the World Championship in Houston from April 16-19.