Area 30 Robotics Club takes first place in skills competition

Area 30 Career Center's Robotics Club, consisiting of (from left) Zane Earles, Drew Bottroff, Sean Hinners, Austin Query, Scott Cummins, Brandon Hawkins, Bobby Welch, Gavino Hernandez and Ruben Hinners, recently was awarded first place in a skills competition at the Ivy Tech campus in Bloomington.

On Saturday, Nov. 2, the Area 30 Robotics Club took first place in the skills competition at the Ivy Tech campus in Bloomington.

Area 30 Career Center had two teams enter the main skills competition called "Light the Lamp 2." This time limited event required a manually driven robot that could pick up regulation size hockey pucks and score them for various points. There was also a 30-second autonomous stage at the beginning of each match where the robot could score based solely on programming.

Each team competed in seven qualifying matches to rank the 51 teams. The team consisting of Austin Query, Sean Hinners and Drew Bottroff ranked as high as second place, while the team consisting of Brandon Hawkins, Bobby Welch and Gavino Hernandez ranked has high as 12th place.

During the tournament, Area 30's two teams combined with a team from Owen Valley High School competed in six matches to take first place overall out of 51 teams.

Area 30 Career Center also entered the "Full-Pull XL" competition with a team consisting of Scott Cummins and Anthony Hendricks. This competition is very similar to a tractor pull, and is based upon the amount of weight pulled and time taken. While they did not place in this event, their robot design pulled 65 pounds in 12 seconds.

Scott Cummins also performed all of the autonomous programming for the skills competition.

Advisers Zane Earles and Ruben Hinners are proud of their students and are looking forward to the next competition at Hoosier Hills Career Center in Bloomington on Dec. 14.