Posted: May 3, 2022
Team Mean Machine Competes At World’s in Houston;
Advances to Einstein Round Robin Competition; Teams Wins $50,000 Prize
Recently, Team Mean Machine was one of 459 qualifying teams to attend the FIRST Inspires 2022 World Championships in Houston, Texas. 3,225 teams comprised of more than 80,000 students from 26 countries competed for the coveted spots in late April.
The robotics team, made up of students from Camas School District as well as Hockinson and Washougal School Districts, attended a remote, live kick-off in early January outlining this season’s game and rules. For the next 6 weeks, students analyzed, designed, built, redesigned, rebuilt, programmed, and re-programmed a robot weighing approximately 140 pounds to be played in a hybrid remote-controlled and autonomous robot game.
Two regional events resulted in lots of lessons learned as well as numerous prestigious awards including the District Chairman’s Award and Industrial Design Award, and ultimately, qualifying Team Mean Machine for an appearance at World’s in the Roebling Division.
At World’s, Team Mean Machine ended qualification matches ranked 47th after some extremely challenging matchups, but due to our robot reliability, durability, and team skills, they were picked by the 3rd seeded team to join their alliance and go on into finals. That alliance won the quarterfinal, semifinal and final rounds, winning the Roebling Field Division and qualifying for Einsteins, a round robin competition between the top six alliance teams. In the past, Team Mean Machine never made it past semifinals.
“We are among the top 24 teams in the world out of 459 competing teams! I am so incredibly proud of these kids for making it to Einsteins,” said Helen Crowell, Faculty Advisor for Team 2471.
She adds, “It is an honor and a privilege to be a part of this world class team. These students and mentors are top notch individuals that come together in ideas, skills, determination, perseverance and with a level of gracious professionalism that we should all aspire to.”
In addition, Team Mean Machine has continued to work on their Power Pivot project from the 2021 season. They won the FIRST Innovation Challenge Semi-Finalist Award for their project which assists caregivers transferring persons with limited mobility between wheel chairs, seats and beds.
With the support of Discovery High School and daily voting that went on District wide, the team won first place in the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association’s REACH challenge and was selected as one of ten teams in the country to win a $50,000 prize in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow challenge. The Team will be utilizing the funds for robotics and Makerspace items such as robotics parts, shop tools, supplies, and replacing old lap tops.
