UP robotics teams head to Houston for FIRST Robotics Competition World Championships in Houston
HOUGHTON, Mich. (WLUC) – Multiple U.P. teams are making their way to Texas for the annual 2024 FIRST Robotics Competition World Championships.
This includes Houghton High School’s Superior Roboworks team. This will be the third year in a row the team has made it to the competition.
“The past two years that we’ve gone to the world championships, but it is not a super easy thing to get into,” Superior Roboworks Scouting Master Ben Manchester said. “You do have to have a good robot and play well.”
They’ll face off against roughly 600 other teams from across the globe. But how will these teams face off? In a game of robotic ring-tossing.
“In the game, we have six robots on the field, three to a team, and we compete against each other to throw these rings into the different scoring areas,” Superior Roboworks Driver Rachel Bergstrom said.” Because of the way the competition works, you don’t know who your partners will be in the next match, because it doesn’t stay the same all of the time.”
Besides Houghton, teams from Gladstone and Brimley are also competing, alongside Ontonagon’s team, Ontonagon Gladiator Robotics. This will be the first time going to the championships for the team of six students. They say they want to thank their community for all their help to get to where they are.
“Thank you for all of the support,” team Members Kole Kin and AJ Rowley said during an interview in Minneapolis. “It’s been really, really crazy how much our community has helped us over the last…I mean, even a week, trying to help us get to this spot to where we can go to Houston.”
The Houghton team also would like to thank their own community for its support. The competition runs from Wednesday until Saturday.
Both Houghton and Hancock teams will be competing in the Archimedes division of the championship. Brimley’s team will be in the Newton division, and Gladstone will be in the Johnson Division.
To find out how to watch the competition in either division from home, click here.
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