Maroon Flying DutchBots qualify for states
Flying DutchBots Maroon Team with the Connect Award. Photo courtesy of Daniella Kippnick
Manchester’s Maroon Flying DutchBots competed at the East Jackson FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) district qualifier on Saturday in Battle Creek and excelled in two major award categories. This performance in these awards helped them secure a spot at the Michigan State FTC championship in mid-December. Only five of the 36 teams in attendance advanced to the state championship.
Manchester had two teams in the competition, the Maroon Flying DutchBots (11193) and the Gold Flying DutchBots (14487). Coach Matt Hall stated, “Both teams had great performances. The Gold Flying DutchBots (our new rookie team) went 4-1 on the day and finished qualifications ranked #10 out of 36 teams. The Maroon Flying DutchBots went 2-3 on the day in qualification matches due to some really bad luck and finished 20th. In one match ,another team’s robot got tangled with ours in autonomous and we were stuck together for the whole game. Another match we had WiFi interference and our auto program, which had been solid all day, did not work.”
Although the Gold team scored higher than the Maroon team, FTC is about a lot more than scores in the matches at competition. A big part of the middle school level is the documentation and community efforts. It is through this aspect that the Maroon team qualified, despite bad luck the day of the competition. The Maroon team won the Connect Award and placed second for the highest overall award, the Inspire Award which Hall describes as basically the “Model Team” award. Because the team that placed first for the Inspire Award had qualified for States based on competition matches, placing second for the Inspire Award was moved up into automatic qualification.
Team mentor, Daniella Kippnick, explained, “Maroon team (consisting of all veteran team members) earned the connect award for what has been done with adding another team, fundraising efforts with the 5/10k, and hosting coding and robotics camps.” She continued to explain that everything that earned them the Connect award, as well as “team efforts, displaying gracious professionalism, solid robot design and programming was what earned the Inspire and our place at states.”
Hall added even more community outreach to the list, “Working with the Manchester Community Schools Foundation and Manchester Community Schools to start a 3-D printing class for all 8th-grade students as a 9 week exploratory. Working with Manchester Community Schools to start new STEM exploratories such as the sixth Grade Design and Modeling class at Riverside this year taught by Mrs. Kranz, and fifth grade Project Lead The Way Class taught by Ms. Wolf,” as well as the new semester-long Automation and Robotics class for seventh and eighth graders, which he teaches.
Hall concluded, “It really is a true honor to do so well in the inspire award category as often times this award is won by very experienced teams from much bigger schools who often times have a depth of talented engineering mentors to pull from.”
Manchester is lucky to have our own pool of talented engineering/technical/ business mentors to pull from. Hall states, “Special thanks go out to Chris Fillyaw, our programming mentor; Mike Kippnick, Matt Sprunk, and Ed and Nick Kurgin, mechanical mentors; Daniella Kippnick, Susie Amrhein, and Wendy Benedict, business/PR mentors. Not only do we have our great mentors but we have a great, supportive school and community. This school and community have helped a facility and shop to work in at the MS/HS. We have a resource of tools, machines, and build space that many other schools in this day and age don’t have anymore, from bandsaws, drill presses, miter saws, welders, sanders etc. We are thankful that the Manchester community and school still value this.
“Lastly, we would like to thank our community sponsors that financially make this all possible. First and foremost, a huge thank you to AMCOR as they have been our biggest sponsor from the very beginning and continue to do so. We would also like to thank Manchester Kiwanis, Manchester Community Schools Foundation, Amrhein Construction, Marion Grain Elevator, LaRock Dental, Matt Donnellon Insurance Agency, and H and R Block of Manchester.”
Kippnick stated, “This was such a huge accomplishment for both teams as we have really all worked together as we are figuring out how to manage two middle school teams and share the mentor support. She also emphasized the role Hall played and the work behind the scenes to add the Gold Team, “(We are) so grateful Matt Hall took middle school team on to coach and worked all the grants and everything he has done behind the scenes to bring it into existence. With the addition of additional committed mentors and the promise of better fundraising opportunities last spring, Manchester Robotics was able to add another team so more MCS kids could participate per FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) rules. So excited to see what the future holds for these kids!”
If you are interested in supporting the team financially with their state competition expenses, you can send a check to: Manchester High School, 20500 Dutch Drive, Manchester mi 48158. Checks can be made out to Manchester Community Schools, attention: Manchester Robotics.
Photos courtesy of Matt Hall:
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