The Fox and Seckman high school robotics teams will be among 36 squads competing Saturday to earn a spot in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) state contest.
Fox’s Doppler Effect and Seckman’s Robo Jag-wires will compete in the Eastern Missouri Conference Qualifier, to be held at noon Saturday (Feb. 22) in the gym at Fox High School, 751 Jeffco Blvd., in Arnold. The qualifier is open to the public. Admission is free.
All the teams will try to win one of nine spots in the state tournament slated for March 7 at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. At the state competition, 48 teams will compete for one of 10 spots in the world competition to be held April 15-18 in Houston.
“This year is super exciting because (the Fox) team, Seckman’s team and Oakville (High School’s) teams are all competing,” said Matt Freeman, a Fox science teacher and Robotics Club sponsor. “It is something that we are hoping a lot of the community comes out to support with the local teams in it.”
Seckman’s squad received a little help from Fox to reach the qualifying event this weekend.
On Jan. 11 at a qualifying competition at St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley, Fox finished second out of 36 teams and got to pick which team to partner with for the final event of the competition. Doppler Effect members chose to team with Seckman’s Robo Jag-wires.
“We had been working with each other a lot, and we knew our robots were working well together,” said Fox senior Nick Allen, 17, of the Doppler Effect team captain.
The Fox and Seckman squads have worked closely together since both schools started robotics teams 10 years ago. Allen said the teams pool resources to build robots and share programming tips for their robots to perform competition tasks.
“Fox and Seckman are rivals in almost every other team event, like football and other sports,” said Seckman junior Teagan Ortmann, 17, of Imperial, the Robo Jag-wires team captain. “In robotics, we have a friendly relationship. We work together and team up. That is huge for the district.”
Kelly Steinbrueck, a Seckman science teacher and Robotics Club sponsor, said forming partnerships is one of the key elements to FIRST, and she said it was great seeing the district’s teams work together at the Jan. 11 competition.
“We were thankful we performed well enough that they would want to join with us,” Steinbrueck said.” We were glad it showed the community within the district”
On Saturday, the teams could have a chance to partner up again and build a tower out of oversized Lego blocks.
The first 30 seconds of the competition requires the robots to perform tasks on their own; then student take over controlling the robots. It is a task the Fox and Seckman teams have helped each other with all year.
“It has been great,” Allen said of the relationship between the two teams. “We wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for them. We can have trouble getting funding for all of the stuff we do. It is great we can pool our resources to get all of the field components and parts that we need. It is important to collaborate with other teams to find the best path forward.”