Robotics team fares well at state
By Vanessa Lenz
SLN Staff
East Troy’s first robotics team held its own during the First Tech Challenge state competition in Milwaukee on Feb. 1.
The student-driven PatronumBots earned the PTC Robot Design Award and was named the runner-up for the Inspire Award, the highest award given at any FTC competition.
“We are so proud of the kids and their amazing performance yesterday,” said coach Shawn Hunter. “They have been working so hard since August and it was very gratifying to see that their efforts were rewarded with so much success.”
The eight-member team spent the past five months creating their competition robot under the supervision of coaches Shawn and Meg Hunter and mentors Ted Zess and Dave Fridley.
The Hunters and a group of East Troy high school and middle school students launched the team last summer to give teens an outlet to embrace the not so typical activity of building robots.
The group of Harry Potter fans came up with their team name after discovering their team number would be 5972 – the same number on the front of the Hogwarts Express.
Following First Tech Challenge’s 2012-13 theme “Ring it Up,” the PatronumBots built a robot that could lift and grab rings on a center goal on a 12-by-12-foot playing field.
“Their robot performed excellent all day and many teams commented on their unique design,” Hunter said.
The PatronumBots won three of their five qualifying rounds and were seeded No. 8 out of 25 teams for robot scoring.
Hunter said the team member had “phenomenal presentation” in front of the panel of judges when they explained their robot design, strategy, teamwork and outreach with the community.
They were nominated for the Engineering Notebook as well as the Innovate Award.
The team was also selected as an alliance partner for the elimination rounds by a team that was the eventual Inspire Award winner, said Hunter.
Next up for the students is a competition in Indiana on March 2.
The PatronumBots will be spending the next month refining their design and programs to prepare for the meet, said Hunter.
The PatronumBots are sponsored by Cedar Point Investments, Allan Integrated Control Systems, Milwaukee School of Engineering, KS Energies and Scot Industries.
For more information, visit www.patronumbots.com or email easttroyrobotics@gmail.com. Follow the team on Twitter @PatronumBots.
