HJHS robotics team captures five awards
Published 3:29 pm Wednesday, October 30, 2013
- Members of Hartselle Junior High School’s Robotics Team display the awards they won at the North Alabama BEST Robotics Regional Competition at Wallace State Community College on Friday. Pictured, from left, are Mary Elizabeth Adams, Macie Holder, Emma Bennich, Sloane Stewart, Rachel Bryan, Hudson Sneed and Tyler Der. | Clif Knight
Hartselle Junior High School’s robotics team advanced to the South’s BEST Regional Robotics Championship by finishing second overall in the North Alabama BEST Robotics Regional Competition at Wallace State Community College on Friday.
The team will compete with the top 56 teams, mostly high school teams, from 18 BEST hubs in six states at Auburn University Dec. 7-8.
HJHS received the Second Place BEST Overall Award, Second Best Robot Award, First Place Marketing Award, Top Gun Award (highest single round points) and Most Robust Robot Award (team with the least amount of robot repairs during the competition).
The team’s robot is named Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory.”
“We decided to keep this year’s project simple and it paid off.” said teacher/sponsor Elisa Harris. “We spent two weeks coming up with a game plan before we began building anything. Our robot required the least amount of repairs during the competition and received the ”Most Robust Robot Award.”
“This is a big opportunity for us, getting to compete with mostly high school teams from across the nation.” said team captain Sloane Stewart. “We look forward to the challenge.”
Stewart credited the team’s success to thinking alike and working well together.
“The team has a good mix of talent and skills and excels at problem solving,” Harris added. “We’ll be working together in practice sessions three or four times a week to prepare for the next competition.”
The team competed against teams from Cullman High School, Cullman Middle School, J. B. Pennington High School, Fairview High School, Good Hope High School, Holly Pond High School and Cullman Area Career Center.
Holly Pond High claimed the first place overall award.
HJHS has finished first or second in five of the six years it has competed in the program and advanced to the South’s BEST Regional.
