River Ridge Robotics Team Heads To World Championship

NEW PORT RICHEY, FL – After a campaign to breach their opponent’s fortifications while defending their stronghold, the Royal Robotics team is primed for its next quest: The FIRST Robotics World Championships.

The rookie team from River Ridge High School advanced from the South Florida Regional robotics competition by winning the highest honor for schools participating for the first time: The Rookie All Star Award. Throughout the competition, Royal Robotics was also honored with the FIRST Dean’s List Finalist Award and the Rookie Inspiration Award sponsored by National Instruments.

Royal Robotics was the only rookie team from the South Florida Regional to advance to the elimination rounds. Sixty teams and 11 rookie teams competed from all over the world in the regional. FRC is one of the largest robotics competitions in the world, with 3,128 teams with roughly 75,000 students competing with 19,000 mentors from 24 countries.

The FIRST Championship takes place April 27-30 in St. Louis.

In each round, teams play as part of a three-robot alliance, working together to score points while attempting to prevent the other alliance from scoring. In this FIRST Stronghold competition, alliances receive points by crossing obstacles and shooting balls into the towers at each end of the field.

The teams play nine qualifying matches at the regional. In these matches, teams are randomly assigned alliance partners and opponents. After the qualification rounds, the top eight seeded teams draft partners for the elimination rounds.

Royal Robotics struggled with technical difficulties during the qualification rounds, but the seventh-seeded team drafted them to play defense in the elimination rounds. That alliance beat the No. 2 team convincingly in the quarterfinals, but lost to the eventual regional champs in the semifinal round.

The River Ridge team is coached by teacher Sam McAmis. Team members are:

• Allysa Allen
• Zack Babcock
• Gavin Dearsman
• Craig Ester
• Dwight Howard
• Kevin Hudak
• Trace Lamb
• Jessie Linares
• Ethan Lovell
• Savanah Mestas
• Vance Mutimer
• Tommy Rimos
• John Schneider
• Tyler Unwin
• Zac Vanlangendonck

YouTube screen shot courtesy of River Ridge High School

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