Team 401 Mentor Preston Childress and robot drivers (from left) Eli Jeslko and Cameron Earl at a FRC event.
Montgomery County Public Schools Team 401 Copperhead Robotics has a magic number this FIRST Robotic Competition season, and it’s three.
Team 401 has won three major awards at three district competitions, which has set them on the path to the national FIRST Championship in Detroit for the third year in a row.
Team 401 is a high school level robotics competition team dedicated to building a 110 pound robot in six weeks to build and program a robot to perform specific tasks on a large field to score points.
The 2018 challenge was called “Power Up” and based on a retro eight-bit arcade game. Teams of robots are required to place “power cubes,” the size of milk crates, on large balancing scales to tip the scaled and gain ownership.
Alliances can also trade cubes for “power ups.” At the end of the match, robots have an opportunity to climb a tower for additional points.
Team 401 traveled to the Deep Run High School the weekend of March 9 in Glen Allen. Team 401 was ranked 21st place with a record of 11-7-0.
Team 401 was selected as one of three alliance partners in the final matches and succeeded to be the District Event Winner. The students won the Gracious Professionalism Award.
Team 401 was all set to host a District qualification event at Blacksburg High School the weekend of March 23. The heavy snow forecast caused the cancellation of the event.
Chesapeake District FRC was able to relocate to the Arthur Ashe Center in Richmond. Thirty-one out of 32 FRC teams were able to change their transportation and lodging from Montgomery County to Richmond.
Team 401 was able to quickly send a van of robot drivers and a few team representatives to be pit crew and presenters rather than the whole team.
Team 401 was able to present to judges the team “3 Is.” Inclusion: girls now make up 40 percent of the team from all four high schools in MCPS. Team 401 has been successful to include students with special needs.
One hundred percent of Team 401’s alumni have gone into STEM-related fields. The ratio of veteran team students to rookie members is two to one. Inspiration: Outreach to the community about FIRST, robotics, and STEM has increased 400 percent since 2015.
All 85 outreaches in the 2017-2018 school year were planned and directed by the high school team members themselves. Innovation: Team 401 is proud of publishing open source codes to help other teams to program robots.
Team 401 help start new FRC team in Mississippi. Team 401 has been collaborating with a FRC team in Cedar Bluff.
“There were many judges who came to talk to Team 401 pit about our presentation. This is the reason for Team 401 won the Chairman’s Award,” Neha Hudait, a first year Team 401 and BHS student, said.
The Chairman’s Award is the most prestigious award in FRC. This award honors the team for best model to emulate and embody the purpose and goals of FIRST.
Shane Bennett is a third year Team 401 student.
“Richmond was hectic because of the relocation from Blacksburg because of the snow. The team members who traveled were super focused on the robot,” he said.
With the number of ranking points, Team 401 advanced to the District’s Championship.
Team 401 had only three days to recover from the Richmond trip and the snowstorm before attending the FIRST Chesapeake District Championship at the Xfinity Center on the campus of University of Maryland.
After three days of fierce competition, Team 401 was ranked in 30th place out of sixty teams with a record of 9-10-0. Team 401 was selected as an alliance partner by the sixth ranked team.
In the quarter and semi-finals match, the first, second and third ranked teams were knocked out of the competition. Team 401 and their alliance partners finished in second place overall and secured to the Judge’s Award.
For the third time in a row, Team 401 will be traveling to the FIRST Championship located in the Detroit, Michigan based on their winning performance and set of awards.
At a team meeting after the Maryland competition, Team 401 was discussing the need to add a little bit of weight to their very tall robot to lessen the chance of tipping over. Coach and BHS robotics teacher, Michael Collver, explained the need to for sub-teams to huddle up and get ready for the championship.
He reminded students that matches at this championship level will be more rigorous. Each sub-team would need to identify one competent to improve to make their robot the most competitive.
Of course, the urgency of the team will be trying to figure out how to crate the team’s robot for its shipment to Detroit. The crate can only be 60 inches tall and the robot is 54.5 inches.
Collver said, “Whenever something went wrong on the robot in the all the competitions, Team 401 scored. We have the best skill set among these students. The robot is well engineered and the most complex but easy to repair.”
John Shewchuk is a second year Copperhead and a BHS student. He said, “This is the best season yet.”
Levi Bower is an East Montgomery High School student in his third and last year with Team 401. He said, “I have really learned that gracious professionalism, team work and hard work will help provide better job opportunities for me in the future.”
This is Michael Maneri’s first year on Team 401. As a CHS student, he is looking forward to the championship in Detroit.
“This type of competition is different than anything I have done before. There is a cooperative effort. I like to meet new people from other teams,” he said
“Good things come in three” has a definite positive meaning for Team 401.