ML robotics compete at FIRST Championship

The Medical Lake High School Circuit Breakers robotics team wrapped up their season competing in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) World Championship in Houston, April 19-22.

In their appearance at the world championships, the Circuit Breakers went 5-5 during the qualification rounds to finish 32nd out of 67 teams of the Hopper Division. Overall, the team finished 192nd out of 6,700 schools from around the world.

The team advanced to the playoffs after they were selected by Alliance 6 — consisting of Team Chill Out, out of Mountlake Terrace, Wash., and Boneyard Robotics, from Winterville, N.C.

After winning the first quarterfinal match, the Circuit Breaker’s robot, Myst, stalled because its battery disconnected following a collision with another machine, resulting in the alliance losing the second match.

The backup team for the alliance — Spartironics, from Bainbridge Island, Wash., — substituted for Medical Lake and the trio lost the tiebreaker.

“The team was disappointed because our robot had performed flawlessly up till then, and we would have liked to made it farther in the playoffs,” Bernie Polikowsky one of the team’s mentors wrote in an email. “However, overall we were all just so happy to have made it to the world championships and were able to compete well at that level.”

Despite not advancing to the semifinals, the Circuit Breakers did not leave Houston empty-handed. The team won the division’s Excellence in Engineering Award — its third competition award of the year.

Sponsored by Delphi, the award is given to schools that have “an elegant and advantageous machine feature” in their robot, according to the FIRST website. Polikowsky said the team “hit a home run” when they described Myst’s gear handling mechanism and vision guidance software for their machine to the judges.

Polikowsky added the team is thankful for the sponsors, donors, parents and school district for supporting them and making the trip to the world championships possible. The team had to raise approximately $12,000 for the trip.

The world championship caps the Circuit Breakers’ most successful season in its four years, which includes ranking first at the March 4 West Valley competition, where they, along with the Cheney and Anacortes robotics teams, made it to the finals of the event, and taking 14th at the Pacific Northwest District championship at Eastern Washington University, April 6-8.

Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.