Dexter High School Robotics Team Places 26th in State Competition

The Robotics Team recently completed its season at the state championship April 12-14.

The team did not qualify for the elimination round at the competition, but members retained a positive outlook for next year.

On Jan. 7, the 13 students and five mentors of the robotics team, attended the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition kickoff event in Novi, where they learned what this year’s game would be.

After learning about the competition, the students, supported by corporate and individual sponsors (such as NuStep, Terumo, Dapco, the Dexter Lions Club and ), work with volunteer mentors from the community to develop a robot that will compete against other teams across the state. The team has only six weeks to build, program and test the robot and have it ready for competition.

A robotics competition is played in alliances of three robots that work together to score points during a match that is 2 minutes and 15 seconds long. This year’s competition was a basketball-style game that included an autonomous period, where the robot is programmed to shoot baskets in a 15-second segment of the match. Thereafter, the robots are operated by human drivers, who program the robot to have it pick up balls and then shoot them into one of four staggered baskets.

Toward the end of the match there is a bridge for the robots to attempt to balance on. This task may be completed by one, two or all three of the alliance’s robots, thereby earning the team 10, 20 or 40 points.

This year the Dexter Dreadbots competed in two district events, and the state championship. The first competition was a district event at Gull Lake High School. After the qualification matches, the Dexter Dreadbots were ranked 10th out of 36 teams competing at the event. For the finals, the team was selected to join the 4th-ranked team’s alliance. This alliance made it to the competition’s semifinals match before being beaten by the first-ranked team.

The weekend of March 23 and 24, the Dreadbots again competed in a district competition, this time at Northville High School. In this competition they completed the qualification rounds with a ranking of 31st out of 40 teams. When it was time for alliance selection for the finals, they were chosen by the first-ranked alliance to join their team. This alliance consisted of Huron Valley School’s HOT (Heroes of Technology) team and the Northville High School Robostangs.

The Dreadbots and their partners readily accomplished the triple balance challenge five times during the competition and went on to win the Northville district tournament.

The team’s performance at the district events qualified the Dreadbots for the FIRST Michigan State Competition. In order to qualify for the state competition, a team has to be ranked in the top 64 teams of the 190 teams in Michigan. The Dreadbots entered the competition in 34th place. At the end of the competition they were ranked 26th out of the 64 teams in the competition. This degree of success in only their second year against much more experienced teams has encouraged the Dreadbots to aim high in coming years in hopes of having future opportunities to attend the state competition and qualify for the world championship in the future.

In order to accomplish these goals, the Dreadbots will need ongoing community support in the form of corporate sponsorships and team mentors.

Contact the team at dhsdreadbot@gmail.com if you are able to help with sponsorship or mentoring.