GHS First Robowranglers go undefeated at regional event

March 2, 2008
Herald-Banner

By Brad Kellar
Herald-Banner Staff

Talk about domination.

The Greenville High School/L-3 Communications Robowranglers Team not only won a regional round of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) campaign Saturday, they overwhelmed all of their opponents.

"We went totally undefeated," said team member Chris Follett.

The team was competing in the Overdrive event in St. Louis, Mo., the first of two regional rounds leading up to the FIRST championships in Atlanta.

Follett said the team went 10-0 through the qualifying rounds to become the top seed, then partnered with two squads from Michigan:  The Thunderchickens from Sterling and The Rat Pack from Ann Arbor, for the championship bouts.

"In the each of the quarterfinal, semifinal and final rounds we had to win two out of three," Follett said.  "We went 2-0, 2-0 and 2-0 all the way through."

The Robowranglers is a robotics team made up of students and teachers from Greenville High School and engineers from RackSolutions.com and L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, who team together each year to build a robot in six weeks.

The FIRST Robotics Championships produce challenges designed to showcase the science and math talents of each team.  The object of this year's competition, "FIRST Overdrive," is to attain a higher score than your opponent by making counter-clockwise laps with your robot around the track while moving large balls over and/or under the overpass that bisects the track.

The next regional round is scheduled for March 27-29 in New Orleans and the championships in Atlanta are set for April 17-19.

Those wanting more information about the team can check out the squad's Web site at www.robowranglers.com or the team's blog at http://team148.blogspot.com.

Team148.org  |  Robowranglers.com