FIRST Team Wants to Be First
April 7, 2003
Greenville Herald Banner

GHS robotics sets record at regionals; prepares for national meet

The Greenville High School/L-3 Communications FIRST Team is preparing for this week's national competition in Houston after a record-setting performance in the Lone Star Regional Competition this past weekend.

The Robowranglers leave for the meet on Wednesday for the final three days of the robotics competition season.  This year's tournament, Stack Attack, is being dubbed as the "Superbowl of Smarts" as its host will be the home of the 2004 Super Bowl, Reliant Stadium.

Greenville ranked second among all 31 robots present at the regional meet, going 15 rounds and being defeated only once.

The Robowranglers reached the semi-finals, placing third in the overall competition and were awarded the GM Industrial Design Award and the Xerox Creativity Award.

Setting an all-school record in robotics competition, senior Matt Sikes and junior Casey Collier drove the 140-lb machine, Lone Star for two days of seeding rounds and competition.

Fourteen undefeated rounds is an all-time best for the Greenville team.  The robust design and unique strategy of play developed by the GHS Students and L-3 Communications volunteer engineers did not go un-noticed by the Regional judges.

The team was given the Xerox Creativity award due to the unique strategy of play and the innovative design of Lone Star.  The Greenville machine was the only machine at competition to sweep away the stacks with a large up right robot and arm.

The design also earned the team the General Motors Industrial Design for its form and function in an efficiently designed machine.  The team was honored on stage twice during the awards ceremony of the three day competition.

Seeding second, the Greenville team situated the Robowranglers as a lead alliance team.  Team 148 was able to select two other teams to accompany them into the final rounds of competition.

The Greenville team chose two Houston area teams to go into the finals, Team 231/Boeing/USA mentoring groups from four Pasadena high schools, and a proven ally from previous years, Team 57 from Exxon/Booker T. Washington High School for Engineering Professions.

Special guest speaker at this year's regional competition was Greenville businessman, Tony Norman.  Norman and Bob Mimlitch were the original volunteers for the GHS robotics team.

Norman and Mimlitch have formed a company Innovation First, Inc. based in Greenville.  Norman spoke of his relationship with the Greenville team during his keynote address and encouraged students from all over the world to leave their dreams.

"Be careful what you wish for," said Norman, "because now I build robots for companies all over the world, all day, everyday."

Innovation First was also a Silver Sponsor at the Lone Star regional.  Innovation First provides control systems for all the FIRST robotics teams in this year's competition and is sponsor of three other regional events.

Innovation First gave each team in competition this year an EDU robotics kit for prototyping robots before building the actual large one.  This concept was developed through the company's relationship with the Greenville team.

This year's team is coached by GHS instructors, Vanessa Pope and Terri Galloway.

High school members of the team are Casey Collier, Justin Duncan, Seth Garcia, Cory Griffiths, Ryan Jenkins, Matthew Mahrer, Jason Maxwell, Beth McClellen, Kevin Morris, Mark Moseley, Ashley Owens, Joel Powell, Rayna Sherman, Lydia Shook, Matt Sikes, Cameron Thacher, Brandon Torrance, Megan Wineinger, and Sarah Wright.

Volunteering for this year's team of engineers are Tom Cloutier, James Collier, Adam Davies, John Hodapp, Steve Lindo, Brad Marcum, David Maxwell, Steve Maxwell, Mike Owens, Adam Reppond, Ricky Torrance, Ray Upp, Mike Waggoner, Casey Welch, Frankie Yau, Allan Yau and Randy Hall.

The team has a website:  http://www.koyote.com/users/vpope and by visiting this website all the information about this year's competition and team can be found.

The website was created by GHS sophomore Matthew Mahrer and was entered into the regional website competition this year.  Also, a new entry for the Greenville team was a three-dimensional computer animation projected created by team senior, Matt Sikes.

Sikes' work was shown on big screens around the venue for the three days of competition.