Wawasee Robotics Tops Own Skills World RecordDUNKIRK – Wawasee Iron Pride’s 574C robotics team, consisting of Micah Rassi, Evan Rassi, Joe Kelsheimer and Nick Murphy, broke its own robotics skills world record en route to taking first place at the West Jay Robotics Turning Point blended state qualifier Saturday.
The team won the tournament championship, excellence award and robotics skills champion.
“Park Tudor broke our record by one point and in true Wawasee Warrior fashion, 574C made a statement by setting the bar six points higher than that,” said Jed Wandland, head coach of the robotics team. “I’m incredibly impressed by 574D who raised their skills score, now ranking them 15th in the world, with goals to reach the top five.
“All of our teams are poised to be in the top third of the state for robot skills in the coming weeks.”
The finals pitted Wawasee’s 574C, qualifying first and aligned with 7701X from Zionsville Community High School, against Wawasee’s 574D, qualifying ninth and aligned with 491X from Pioneer Jr.-Sr. High School, Royal Center. This is the second tourney in a row where C and D found themselves in opposition to each other in the final match of the tournament. C won autonomous, giving them the early lead. D fought back to win by two points.
“It was a great match,” said Noah Beckner of 574D.
Wawasee had all 10 of its teams in the finals bracket. The Iron Pride placed first, third, fourth, eighth, 13th, 14th, 17th, 18th, 23rd and 24th in the skills challenge, a time trial to see how many points the robot can score by itself in one-minute driver and one-minute autonomous periods.
Team 574C is ranked first in the world in the event this week with a score of 51. 574D ranked 15th with a score of 36; 574M ranked 168th (24); 574E ranked 285th (21); 574F ranked 387th (19); 574A ranked 527th (17), 574J ranked 528th (17); 574K ranked 540th (16); 574G ranked 1184th (10); and 574B ranked 2188th with a score of 2.
Last year, there were 10,000 teams in the world in skills challenge.
The next tournament is Saturday at Portage High School.
West Jay Robotics Turning Point Blended State Qualifier
Wawasee Results
574C “Centurion” – (Micah Rassi, Evan Rassi, Joe Kelsheimer, Nick Murphy) first place & alliance captain, robotic skills champion, world robotic skills rank 1.
574D “Immortal” – (Cory Dunivan, Noah Beckner, Jack Collins, Wesley Hays, Nathan Smith) tournament champion, ninth place, third robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 15.
