Team 574C, from left, Joe Kelsheimer, Evan Rassi, Micah Rassi and Nick Murphy.

LOUISVILLE — More than 24,000 teams from around the globe competed for the coveted 600 slots at the VEX World Championship in Louisville April 24-27. More than 46 countries were represented and Wawasee Iron Pride came home with three trophies and scored the fastest driver skills time at the world competition.

574D finished three days of intense qualification rounds with an 8-3 record and a ranking of 21 out of 96 teams in the science division. They were chosen by the seventh seeded team and were defeated in the round of 16 in the science division. This is a tremendous accomplishment for a team’s first trip to worlds.

574C fought their way through qualifications rounds with a 9-2 record and a ranking of four out of 96 teams. Going into the final rounds they rose to the third seed in their division, and concluded their three days of tournament play by bringing home tournament finalist and the Amaze Award in the math division, and second in the robot skills challenge. During the robot skills challenge, Evan Rassi, supported by his team members, performed his one minute driving portion of the skills run in the dome under the lights of Freedom Hall and achieved the highest score anyone had seen while still having nine seconds left before the clock ran out. The spectators lost their minds and erupted in thunderous cheers.

The Iron Pride has been to the world competition three years running, but 574C & D had a whole new experience this year. They were invited to private scrimmages by the top ranked teams in the world in order to build alliances. Many teams, coaches, VEX and Robotics Education & Competition Foundation employees visited the 574 team pits to get a picture with them, to meet them, to scrimmage, or to work on building alliances.

“The Iron Pride teams have made their mark and put our area on the map on a global scale. The students have become worldwide ambassadors within the robotics community due to their excellence, but more importantly because of how wonderful they are as people,” commented head coach, Jed Wandland.

Making Their Mark

574D started a campaign to have Dillon Row, a VEX employee, added to the Game Development Committee (“DROW for GDC”). DROW is Row’s online name as an administrator of the VEX Forums. 574D printed stickers, flags, capes and sweatshirts to promote the cause. While 574D did not win any major awards, a DROW flag made it on stage being displayed by one of the worlds champions. A DROW sticker can even be seen on a robot in the reveal video for next year’s challenge. The DROW cause was mentioned on multiple occasions by the emcees during ceremonies in Freedom Hall.

Trophies

574C — tournament finalist in the math division (second place)

574C — VRC high school robot skills challenge second place

574C — Amaze Award — The Amaze Award is presented to a team that has built a competition robot clearly demonstrating overall quality. A solid mechanical design along with demonstrated robot programming, robustness, strong performance and consistency are key attributes assessed for this award.

Teams have already started planning and designing their robots for next season, Tower Takeover, in 2019-20.