Thirty-three teams entered, and only a few managed to emerge with hardware during the Riverside Middle School robotics tournament Dec. 1.
The tournament was a part of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) Tech Challenge is a world-wide K-12 robotics program.
The FIRST Tech Challenge is geared toward the middle school age group.
Officially the tournament was hosted by the Crestwood High School FIRST Robotics Team #7174. They are also known as the Protobots when competing.
The CHS team is entering its second year of competition. Last year they were given the Rookie All-Star Award in their district competition.
Crestwood School District school board member, Ed Garcia, served as the Master of Ceremonies for the tournament.
During the tournament, each of the 33 teams competed five times in an alliance with another randomly selected team from another school. The two teams then compete against two other teams. Each team competes in five matches throughout the tournament with different teams. At the end of the qualifying rounds, the teams are ranked in order and are then paired with two other teams for playoffs.
The challenge this year was to build and program a robot that will drive autonomously for 30 seconds.
After this driverless period, the drivers take control and drive the robot with remote controls for the remaining 2 minutes of the match.
Teams must move objects around the field in order to score points as well as park their robot in certain parts of the field at the end of the match to score additional points.
At the end of qualifying rounds, three teams from Dearborn Heights were in the semi-final playoff round.
Two teams from Riverside and one team from STEM Middle School squared off in the playoffs.
From Riverside, sixth graders Hailey Seguin, and Mesada Shalhout, whose team name was the Robot Wrestlers,were in an alliance of teams that met another alliance that included Riverside eighth graders Mo Musbah and Samer Ayache of the Emu Beam Cats.
The Emu Beam Cats’ alliance won the best two out of three playoff and faced an alliance that included another Dearborn Heights middle school, the STEM-Bots, from STEM Middle School.
“The finals were exciting, taking all three matches in the best 2-out-of-3 playoff format to decide. In the end, the STEM-Bots’ alliance prevailed,” Riverside Robotics teacher Peter Marabeas said.
The other two teams on the winning side were The Goonies, from Patrick Henry Middle School in the Woodhaven-Brownstown School District, and the Hacker Hawks from Shumate Middle School in Rockwood.
Other teams on the runner-up team were the Panthers from Hilbert Middle School in Redford and the W.I.M.A. MachaniCats from Washtenaw International Middle Academy in Ypsilanti.
Teams were also interviewed by judges and were given trophies for various awards. The STEM-Bots earned the Think Award for having a creative and innovative engineering and design process in building their robot. They were also a finalist for the Design and Inspire Awards
Another Riverside team, the RoboRavens, earned the Judges Award for being a top candidate in all categories of judging. They were also finalists for the Control Award for programming prowess.
