Girard, Fitch, Hubbard, Harding advance at robotics regionals

Staff report

CLEVELAND

The Girard High School FIRST Robotics team, the RoboCats, captured the Buckeye Regional Championship gold medal over the weekend, qualifying it and its alliance partner Austintown Fitch FalcoTech to compete at the World Championships in St. Louis next month.

In addition to Girard’s and Fitch’s wins, two other Mahoning Valley teams — Hubbard’s Sonic Screwdrivers and Warren G. Harding’s Delphi E.L.I.T.E. — also qualified for the World Championships at the regionals, which took place Friday and Saturday at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University.

The Girard team also captured the Engineering Inspiration Award, the second-highest award given to FIRST [For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology] Robotics teams, which is another of four ways a FIRST team can qualify for the World Championships. The RoboCats thus became a “double” World Championship qualifier. The Engineering Inspiration Award recognizes outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community.

Hubbard’s team earned its way to the World Championships by winning the Rookie All-Star Award, which celebrates the rookie team exemplifying a young but strong partnership effort, as well as implementing the mission of FIRST to inspire students to learn more about science and technology.

The RoboCats were ranked as the No. 1 team throughout the qualifying rounds on Friday and Saturday, placing them as the No. 1 seed going into playoffs Saturday afternoon.

The RoboCats chose Team 1592 from Cocoa Beach, Fla., and Team 3193 from Austintown Fitch High School as their alliance partners. As a member of the winning alliance, Austintown earned its spot at the World Championships.

The winning alliance sailed through quarterfinals and semifinals with the highest averages and moved into finals where it defeated the second place alliance 2-0 in a best-of-three showdown with an alliance including Warren G. Harding’s team 48, Delphi E.L.I.T.E.. That team then qualified for the World Championships through a Wild Card slotearned because a member of the winning alliance had already qualified for the championships.

Warren’s team also earned the Team Spirit Award, sponsored by Chrysler, which recognizes extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit through exceptional partnership and teamwork.

Other Valley teams competing in the weekend regionals were Canfield High School, Champion High School and Cardinal Mooney High School. Those teams and the world qualifiers from Mahoning and Trumbull counties are part of the Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance.

“We work together to cultivate an appreciation for engineering,” said Judy Barber, head coach of the Girard team.

More than 1,500 students from high schools in the United States and Canada took part in the weekend competition.

The World Championships will take place April 22 to April 25 in St. Louis.