Authored by: Cdt/1LT Lincoln Ritter
Photos by: MAJ (Ret) Madonna L. Roberts
Four members of the JROTC robotics team traveled with MAJ (Ret) Roberts and Specialist McDougall to Dallas, Texas the week of April 26th for the VEX World Robotics Championship Competition. The event featured more than 20,000 students from 49 states and 36 countries.
The Ansbach Green Trash Cans was one of only 68 teams selected to compete in the JROTC portion of the Championship. The field of 68 was narrowed down from a total of 3,500 Army JROTC programs. The teams competed in local events to be selected to compete in Dallas.
At the beginning of the event, The Ansbach Green Trash Cans showed their prowess in the skills test portion of the competition. The team had several complications with their autonomous mode not working when it was plugged into the field. But they kept at it, focused on engineering, and scored enough points to place 13th in the skills test.
The team then moved on to the qualification matches where they were paired up with a random ally against two opponents. After 10 match-ups, The Green Trash Cans placed 55th overall. Looking back on the event, Chance Duplessie, team builder and driver said, “The real robotics trophy was the friends we made along the way.” For team captain Brylee Wollenzein, “It wasn’t the people, the place, or the work put in that made it fun, it was the mindset.” For this author, as one of the team’s builders, it was awesome that we got to go to the World Championships our first year having a Robotics Team. It was also the first time doing Robotics for several of us on the team. With our new expertise, we will do even better next year.