DELHI, La. (KTVE/KARD) — A group of robotic students used their talent to win it all at the Robotics State Championship over the past weekend.
The Delhi Charter School students is now invited to participate in the Robotics World Championship in April.
The robot is conducted by multiple engines programmed with the controller to move or pick up objects for points. The four high school students competed against dozens of other robotic teams. After months of preparation, they brought home first place.
“About 14 hours all together competing, but it was worth it, honestly,” said Rylee Graham, a senior student.
The students started building –what they call ‘guts’ this past summer. Each person had a different job in building it.
“He is the one who does all the competition driving and everything, I do the programming, and then we all build,” said Graham.
Together, the students were able to code the engines to tell the robot what to do. How to spin, pick up disks, and roll the bars all for points.
“There are lots of ways to play the game. There isn’t always a set of meta, but traditionally there is one way of scoring better than others,” said Ashton Harrell
Another senior student.
“Matches are very short, so you have to think fast if something goes wrong,” explained Graham.
One of the valuable skills learned among engineering and life skills includes communication. Something this 14-year-old student, Crestin Knight, has learned when competitions get heated.
“Calm down, seat down and take a breather or something like that. kind of just understand it and resolve it.”
Even though the students have established a meta, an ideal robot and way of score and play. The Robotics World Championship may push them to the limit in the game and in their lives.
“The excitement, the adrenaline that you are going to get there from being able to compete there,” said Knight.
“The way that people play the game is going to change as the manual is updated. Our robot is good now but we want it to tear. we want it to be able to compete with anyone,” said Harrell.
“As I started to compete, and I felt the energy of competition, I started getting better at everything I was doing. I completely fell in love with it,” said Graham.
Science teacher Eric Vidrine says this is a proud moment for the Delhi community.
“We are not just a farming community. These kids are going to be able to go off and be engineers and be computer programmers, and even in a small rural town like Delhi, we do have this type of technology here, and we really have these smart kids.”
The team will be heading to Dallas to the Robotics World Championship in April.
