Team 574D “Immortal” receives tournament champion award and also qualifies for the Indiana VEX Robotics State Championships. Team members include Jack Collins, Cory Dunivan, Nathan Smith, Wesley Hays and Noah Beckner.

SYRACUSE — Wawasee’s robotics team won the tournament championship, excellence award and robotics skills champion Saturday, Dec. 8, at West Jay County Middle School.

Robotics skills world record was broken again. “Park Tudor broke our record by one point and in true Wawasee Warrior fashion 574C made a statement by setting the bar six points higher than that,” said Jed Wandland, head coach of the robotics team. “I’m incredibly impressed by 574D who raised their skills score now ranking them 15th in the world, with goals to reach the top five,” continued Wandland, “All of our teams are poised to be in the top third of the state for robot skills in the coming weeks.”

The finals pitted Wawasee’s 574C, qualifying first and allianced with 7701X from Zionsville Community High School, against Wawasee’s 574D, qualifying ninth and allianced with 491X from Pioneer Jr.-Sr. High School of Royal Center. This is the second tourney in a row where C & D found themselves in opposition to each other in the final match of the tournament. C won autonomous, giving the early lead. D fought back to win by two points. “It was a great match,” said Noah Beckner of 574D.

Wawasee had all 10 teams in the finals bracket. The Iron Pride placed first, third, fourth, eighth, 13th, 14th, 17th, 18th, 23rd, and 24th in skills challenge, a time trial to see how many points the robot can score by itself in one minute driver and one minute autonomous periods. Team 574C is ranked first in the world in this challenge this week with a score of 51 and; 574D ranked 15th with a score of 36, 574M ranked 168th with a score of 24, 574E ranked 285th with a score of 21, 574F ranked 387th with a score of 19 ,574A ranked 527th with a score of 17, 574J ranked 528th with a score of 17, 574K ranked 540th with a score of 16, 574G ranked 1,184th with a score of 10 and 574B ranked 2,188th with a score of two. Last year, there were 10,000 teams in the world in skills challenge.

Team results: (as end of tournament)

574D “Immortal” — Tournament champion, ninth place, third robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 15, — Cory Dunivan, Noah Beckner, Jack Collins, Wesley Hays, Nathan Smith

574C “Centurion” — First place and alliance captain, robotic skills champion, world robotic skills rank first — Micah Rassi, Evan Rassi, Joe Kelsheimer, Nick Murphy

574M “Amazon” — fifth place, semifinals, 15th robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 153 — Alison Cole, Keegan Cook

574E “Legion” — sixth place, quarter finals, fourth robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 267 — Connor Byrd, Ryan Scott, Jackson Coverstone

574K “Athena” — 11th place, quarter finals, 23rd robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 504 — Makenna Tharp, Norah Miller, Andrea Mickley

574F “Barbarian” ~ 14th place, quarter finals, eighth robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 362 — Vanessa Wright, Mykie Moses, Tess Helfers

574J “Xerxes” — 15th place, finals round of 12, 18th robotics skills, world robotic skills rank 492 — Ethan Hays, Michael Davis, Gage Beezley

574G “Iron Knight” — 22nd place, 17th robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 1,108 — Colten Edger, Harry Doss, Brian Schlabach, Jossie Coy

574A “Marines” — 24th place, quarter finals, 14th robotics skills, world robotic skills rank 491 — Joey Sunday, Even Gerding

574B “Berserker” — 27th place, finals round of 12, 24th robotic skills, world robotic skills rank 2,079 — Anah Sommers, Alivia Stidams, Adrieanna Yoder

Next tournament is Saturday, Dec. 15, at Portage High School.

Team 574C “Centurion” receives the skills award, first in world in skills challenge. From left are Micah Rassi, Evan Rassi, Joe Kelsheimer and Nick Murphy.