On Tuesday, March 12 members of the CCHS robotics team met with the Grand Marais Lions at Sven & Ole’s for a pizza party and to demonstrate their Ice Storm robot for the much impressed Lions. Clockwise from left: Hailey Smith, Coach Tom Nelson, RaeAnne Silence, Sky Robley, Olivia Nesgoda, Recko Helmerson- Skildum, Cayden Zimmer, and John Vander Heiden (glasses and stocking cap). Staff photos/Brian Larsen
A very young Cook County High School robotics team attended the regional FIRST robotics competition held at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC) last weekend and performed very well.
Actually, there was no time to get nervous. Following the Thursday practice round, Ice Storm was paired with two other teams to compete against three other teams in the second match of the day on Friday, March 8.
“The kids had to be ready at 7:40 a.m.,” said head coach Tom Nelson. “The competition was moved up an hour because of the impending storm.” Which never materialized, but nonetheless, the kids had to wipe the sleep from their eyes and be on their game earlier than they normally would have.
And their team won!
The way the competition works, in the beginning teams are randomly paired in threes to compete against each other—their robots lifting balls or pushing balls into scoring zones while the other team tries to block you and score at the same time. The more points your robot makes, the better chance your team has of winning the three-minute match.
After each team played in seven matches, the top six teams each get to pick two teams to round out their squad and go on to compete for the right to go to nationals.
Sadly, Ice Storm wasn’t picked.
Ice Storm won two matches and lost five matches during the three-day tournament.
With thousands of people on hand to root for their teams, music blaring from the speakers, a boisterous play-by-play from the moderator, high energy colorfully dressed “nerd” cheerleaders cheering nerd cheers, the DECC is a madhouse of fun and science merged into one.
How big is this tournament?
Last weekend the DECC concurrently hosted two regional events with 60 teams each—Lake Superior and Northern Lights—which makes it the biggest robotics competition held in one place in the U.S. until the national championships.
The theme for this year’s regional competition was Deep Space, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
“Our kids did a tremendous job,” Nelson said. “The scoring was done differently this year. One of the moms kept track of our robot and said we placed in the top 20. We hoped to get picked for the finals. We thought we had a chance, but we weren’t selected.”
With a squad largely made up of eighth-graders, Ice Storm should be back better than ever next year. Three yeas ago Ice Storm made the top six and fought for a chance to move on to the nationals. That time could be coming in the near future.
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