by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Sartell fourth- and fifth-grade students came away with armloads of honors from the Vex IQ Robotics competitions that took place at St. Cloud’s Apollo High School and in Princeton earlier this month.
The Sartell Middle School teams consisted of three teams comprised of fifth-graders, and the teams excelled beyond their expectations at Apollo – with first-, second- and third-place finishes, a Sportsmanship Award, a Design Award, several trophies and three invitations to the state tournament.
The state tournament will take place Saturday, Feb. 3 in St. Cloud.
There are 26 students who take part in robotics education in Sartell’s two elementary schools and its middle school.
“This was our very first tournament, making their performances even more impressive,” said Paul Moe, Sartell instructional-technology specialist and a coach for the robotics teams at SMS and Oak Ridge Elementary School. Ron Klein is the coach for the robotics teams at Pine Meadow Elementary School.
Here are the results of the competition at Apollo High School:
SMS 1 – Yazaan Anjum, Sam Connor, Jameson Kremer and Austin Miller. The team earned trophies for third place in the teamwork challenge and second place in the skills challenge.
“They did a great job of working together on Saturday and had a very unique design compared to the rest of the robots,” Moe said.
SMS Team 2 – Anders Haroldson, Skyler Mortezaee, Grant Privatsky and Jay Wietgenant. The team earned second place in the teamwork challenge and an invitation to state competition. Its members were also given the Sportsmanship Award, which was voted on by all the teams at the competition, with the award criteria being a willingness to work with other teams throughout the event.
“Team 2 also had to deal with disappointment and showed great perseverance as their robot suffered some damage early in the day,” Moe said. “They had to drive three times with a good portion of their robot not in working condition. They kept calm and worked together to overcome the setback.”
SMS Team 3 – Jacob Ertl, Peyton Moe, Charlie Steil and Cole Swenson. The team earned first place in the teamwork challenge and an invitation to state competition.
“That team also did a great job of working with other teams throughout the tournament,” Moe noted.
Oak Ridge Team 1: (This team, along with ORE Team 2) also competed at Apollo. Its members are Katheryn Anderson, Alivia Dixon, Landon Kadoun and Lincoln Nordby. The team won the Design Award, based on interviews conducted by two judges throughout the competition. The judges also reviewed the team members’ engineering notebooks about their ideas, designs, building and testing their robots.
“This team did an outstanding job of explaining their design and earned an invitation to state competition,” Moe said.
ORE Team 2 – Talan Dirks, Justin Hunt, Lauren Pederson and Isabell Wuellner. The team took an 11th-place award.
“They represented Sartell very well,” Moe said. “They had a great day competing and interacting with the other teams.”
The two robotics teams from Pine Meadow Elementary school competed recently in Princeton.
PME Team 1: Adam Bertsch, Logan Mayabb and Noah Waletzko. The team finished third in the Princeton competition finals.
“They had fun learning, competing and checking out other schools’ designs,” Moe said.
PME Team 2 – Andre Asmus, Weston Bokelman and Camden Norman. This team took fourth place in the Princeton competition finals.
“They did a great job of working together and were very enthusiastic during the competition,” Moe said.
Background
The ORE robotics program was originally funded through the ORE Parent-Teachers Organization a few years ago. The robotics programs at PME and SMS were funded by the Sartell-St. Stephen Education Foundation through a grant and Community Education funds.
During competitions, students place their robots in an area and then maneuver via remote control, making the machines do a variety of tasks, such as picking up plastic cones, moving them, stacking them and so forth. Many hours of planning, design and construction go into the robots.
The Vex Robotic competitions are sponsored by the national Robotics Education and Competition Foundation. The goal is for teams to design and build their own robots and then compete in a game-based engineering challenge.
At Apollo High School, Sartell-St. Stephen Team 3 champs pause for a photo during the Vex IQ Robotics competition. Besides winning first for teamwork competition, the team was also invited to state competition Feb. 3 in St. Cloud. From left to right are Charlie Steil, Cole Swenson, Jacob Ertl and Peyton Moe.
Lincoln Nordby (left) and Landon Kadoun try out their robot during practice time in Sartell. They are members of the Oak Ridge Elementary Team 2, along with Katheryn Anderson and Alivia Dixon.
Sartell robotics students (left to right) Peyton Moe, Landon Kadoun and Alivia Dixon work out the intricacies of the robots they planned, designed and constructed.
Adam Bertsch, 9, takes a turn driving the robot he, and Pine Meadow Elementary Team 1 team members Noah Waletzko and Logan Mayabb, built at the Sartell Middle School.