Wesleyan Robotics: STEM in Action
March 4th, 2019
On Friday and Saturday, February 22nd and 23rd, Wesleyan’s high school robotics team competed in the Georgia First Tech Challenge (FTC) State Championship Tournament at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School. Forty-two of the best teams from Georgia were invited to the tournament based on performance in previous qualifying tournaments, and the Steel Wolves advanced by winning the “Think Award” for their excellent engineering documentation. After many hours of testing, troubleshooting, and re-programming their robot, “America the Beautiful”, the team finished 23rd overall but was not selected for the finals. Team members included Hunter Darsey (12th), Ben Smoke (12th), Lauren Oakes (12th), Maximus Smith (12th), Ryan Free (9th), Alexander Staley (10th), Mr. Stephen Mihalko (Science Teacher), and Mr. Randy Cailor (Director of STEM).
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On Friday and Saturday, February 22nd and 23rd, Wesleyan’s high school robotics team competed in the Georgia First Tech Challenge (FTC) State Championship Tournament at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School. Forty-two of the best teams from Georgia were invited to the tournament based on performance in previous qualifying tournaments, and the Steel Wolves advanced by winning the “Think Award” for their excellent engineering documentation. After many hours of testing, troubleshooting, and re-programming their robot, “America the Beautiful”, the team finished 23rd overall but was not selected for the finals. Team members included Hunter Darsey (12th), Ben Smoke (12th), Lauren Oakes (12th), Maximus Smith (12th), Ryan Free (9th), Alexander Staley (10th), Mr. Stephen Mihalko (Science Teacher), and Mr. Randy Cailor (Director of STEM).
“I think this is a prime example of the power of STEM to transform students’ lives,” said Mihalko, the team’s teacher sponsor and technical mentor. “The team has worked hard since September to design, build, program, and test multiple solutions to the problems presented by the game; the critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills they have developed will serve them well in college and beyond,” he added.
With the competition season over, the team will take a break until next year when they will face a new group of challenges to overcome. The team would like to thank the parents and students who came to support them at the competition.
