Broadwater Robotics Team Wins At The State Finals
Author: Matt Nelson
Matt Nelson
Nik Toney, Kay Crusch, Liam Wells, Karolyn Schmaus, Gavin Greene, Aiden Kitto, Cooper Nichter, Trenton Essary, and Sam Smith, students from Broadwater High School, and members of the Broadwater Robotics Team, competed against 23 other high schools at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman on Friday, February 6th for the state championship in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). Jessica Crusch, Dr. Lisa Brown, Spencer Sellay, Adam Six, Roger Flynn, Bobbie McCauley, and Jim Strait do an excellent job of coaching the students.
FIRST is the acronym FOR INSPIRATON & RECOGNITION OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. Broadwater Robotics is part of STOKE, which stands for SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, OUTDOORS, KNOWLEDGE, ENTREPRENEURSHIP. They ran 7 matches and one practice match.
This year’s FIRST Tech Challenge game, DECODE, centers around shooting plastic balls into elevated hoops on a fast-moving field. Robots race to collect balls, line up, and fire at the targets under pressure. The match is a two-and-a-half-minute match with 30 seconds of autonomous and two minutes of remote control. The robots are controlled via Wi-Fi by the students operating iPads. The programming itself is very complex and done by the students.
Coach Roger Flynn was pleased with how the team performed. “It was a hard-fought day, but the kids never gave up. We’ve come a long way since the Helena qualifier held at Carroll College on January 17th, and you could see improvement in every match at Bozeman,” he said. Coach Flynn also reflected on the season as a whole: “This is a great group of students. Just making it to State was a big accomplishment for us and something we can build on. Taking second place in the RTX Innovate Award was a really strong finish for Broadwater Robotics.”
RTX is an aerospace company. This is the description for the award: The Innovate Award, sponsored by RTX, is a prestigious honor in the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition, celebrating the team with the most creative, ingenious, and effective "out-of-the-box" robot design solution. It recognizes elegant, robust, and functional designs—either for a whole robot or a specific mechanism—that reliably solve game challenges.
All the teams that competed at MSU work hard and are very dedicated and bright. They all have that hope of winning and going to the National Competition in Houston in April. Unfortunately, the Broadwater Robotics team did not win, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. They can have great pride knowing that they made it to Second Place. This is only the third year since the formation of the team. They have nothing to be ashamed of. The winning team was Fusion out of Helena.
Special thanks go to the sponsors, who are STOKE, Townsend Rotary, The Lodge of Townsend, Ace Hardware of Townsend, Graymont, Bob’s Supermarket, Broadwater Equipment Services, Opportunity Bank, Green Wing, Squatch Country Construction Services, Systems Northwest, Boeing, the Birch Family, Sim and Robin Hofman, and the Gianforte Family Foundation for their support of Broadwater Robotics.
Congratulations to the Broadwater Robotics Team for making it to the State Finals.
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Image 1 Caption: Broadwater Robotics L-R - Coach Roger Flynn, Coach Spencer Sellay, Coach Jessica Crusch, Gavin Green, Cooper Nichter, Trenton Essary, Liam Wells, Aiden Kitto, Sam Smith, Kay Crusch, Nik Toney, Karolyn Schmaus, Coach Dr. Lisa Brown, Coach Adam Six, and Coach Bobbie McCauley. Not pictured is Coach Jim Strait.
Photo Credit: Matt Nelson
Image 2 Caption: Seniors Aiden Kitto and Gavin Greene are recognized for their years of participation in the FIRST Tech League program.
Photo Credit: Coach Roger Flynn
Image 3 Caption: This is the ball-tossing robot built by the Broadwater Robotics Team.
Photo Credit: Matt Nelson
