By Liam Houston

TORC Student Team Member

Oxford High School’s FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team, Team 2137 TORC (The Oxford RoboCats), competed at the FIRST Championship held in Detroit last week where they placed 30th out of 68 on their field but were ultimately knocked out of the competition during quarterfinal eliminations.

“I feel that our team improved greatly from the Michigan State Championship and we did the best we could considering the challenges we faced throughout the competition,” said Jason Grabowski, Mechanical Student Captain.

TORC was in the 5th of 6 divisions (Carson field) along with 67 other teams out of the 408 total teams at the event. Performing well with their robot, they placed 30th overall through qualification matches. The team was then picked by team 619, Cavalier Robotics from Charlottesville, Virginia to join the fourth alliance along with team 234, Cyber Blue from Indianapolis, Indiana, and team 5587, and Titan Robotics from Alexandria, Virginia for elimination matches. During quarter finals their alliance lost to the fifth alliance after two exciting matches.

“My favorite part of being at the FIRST Championship is seeing the bigger context behind your work,” said Keira Houston, electrical student captain. “It shows you that all the blood, sweat, tears, and challenges leading up to the big day were worth it.”

This season, TORC was one of 6,917 high school teams worldwide competing with 542 of the teams coming from Michigan. Each season the teams are given a theme related challenge that they must design and build their robot to complete in just six weeks. At the competitions the students drive their robot in three-on-three matches where points scored by their robots completing the tasks of the game determine the winner.

“FIRST gives students an opportunity to explore new ways of approaching tasks using innovation and technology,” said Chuck March, team mentor, about the value the program provides. Through the process of building a robot each season, students must find ways to work together learning important skills such as teamwork, communication, and leadership to solve the challenges of the game.

“Through hands-on experience they can quickly see that STEM is something they can apply in real life situations with help from fellow students, mentors and the FIRST community,” said Eric Schimmel, team coach.

“My favorite part of being on the team is all the amazing experiences and opportunities the FRC program provides. Being able to come together and work with such a diverse group of kids in our school so not something a lot of students get the opportunity to do. I have made amazing friends across all the grade levels and from other teams,” said Makenzie Funke, business, outreach and awards team student captain. “This team and program also provide more than just an engineering experience so students interested in other areas can also get involved.”

In addition to building a robot, the students also work to be a self-managed, mentor guided, entity that also defines their mission, business plan and strategy to also execute both STEM and humanitarian outreach. While at this year’s championship, the team took time to deliver donations collected to the Pope Francis Center to assist in its support for the homeless in downtown Detroit.

“Our team is always looking for ways to build more than robots and I think we accomplished this with our visit to Detroit,” said May Reynolds, team mentor.

The championship started on April 24 and lasted until April 27. Qualifications and the quarter and semi finals were held on six fields at Cobo convention center on Saturday afternoon before the teams went to Ford Field to watch the finals and closing ceremonies.

“Although it was not the outcome we were hoping for, it was still an outstanding experience for (the team),” said Zack Lundy, student team member.