|
Power of the Team
Robotics team kicks off season in fine form
March
1, 2007
Greenville Herald Banner
Greenville High School's acclaimed Robotics team, which brought
home national recognition just last spring, has started its
competitive season with the usual high marks.
The
high school team finished in third place February 10 at the 2007
FIRST Vex Challenge Southwest Regional, held at the University of
Texas at Arlington. The team also won the Connect Award
trophy, given to the team that best represents how a robotics team
can involve not only a community of engineers but an entire
community.
The
local team was lauded for its bake sales, recycling efforts and
time within the community visiting about robotics and making
presentations with the robot.
The
Vex competition was the first of three competitions for the GHS
team -- The Robowranglers -- over the next few months.
Representing the team at the Vex competition were Dustin Beasley,
Austin Lambert, Mark Mahrer, Logan Marcum, Ethan Isham and Justin
Tharp. Lead engineer was Ken Stroud and the team was coached
by Johnny Tharp.
"It
was one very exciting day in Arlington," said team sponsor Vanessa
Pope. "It was a great start to our competitive season."
The
Robowranglers are comprised of students and teachers from GHS and
engineers from RackSolutions.com and L-3 Communications Integrated
Systems. Each year, volunteer engineers team with the high
school students and members from the community to build a robot in
a time period of six weeks to enter into the FIRST robotics
competitions.
Through this building process, engineers mentor students in
brainstorming, prototyping, design and creation of the robot and
its functions. Students work with engineers each evening to
create and build the various parts needed for the robot.
This enables the students to take classroom concepts from the math
and science fields and apply them to a real world situation.
Last
year, the Robowranglers Team 148 made it to the quarterfinals and
finished in the top 20 of its division at the FIRST Robotics
championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, competing against 85
other teams from across the United States and other countries.
The Robowranglers Vex Team 1148 won the national championship in
the FIRST Vex Challenge invitational competition.
This
year's team consists of students Dustin Beasley, Bethany Follett,
Nathan Follett, Ben Gilbert, Lane Gould, Ethan Isham, Trent Jones,
Keith Kaden, Austin Lambert, Julie Latimer, Haley Lawson, Mark
Mahrer, Logan Marcum, Zack McClellen, Kory Porter, Adam Risley,
Justin Tharp, Will Thornton, Clayton Torrance, Stacey Walker,
Melanie Wisdom and Karlee Wright.
The
team is coached by Pope and New Horizons Learning Center
instructor Johnny Tharp. Volunteer engineers are Chris
Carnevale, Ben Kolski, Brandon Martus, Ricky Torrance and John V-Neun
(RackSolutions.com) and Chris Follett, John Hodapp, Steve Maxwell,
Adam Reppond, Kevin Rodgers, Ken Stroud and Casey Welch (L-3
Communications).
"We
are in absolute awe of the devotion of Tony Norman and Bob
Mimlitch, owners of RackSolutions.com, for their commitment to our
program and to the development of a team," said Pope. "We
want to honor all our engineers for treating every student as an
individual, for taking the spirit of education to heart and
teaching not just about the power of engineering, but about the
power of living life to its fullest."
Beginning today, the team will compete in the Gateway Regional
FIRST Robotics Competition.
"While are are competing, we will be representing our families,
our school and our communities," said Pope. "We take with us
the power of teamwork, the heart of a lion and the spirit of
success, as we have already won so much just by our development of
a very unique robot."
|
