Robotics team headed to St. Louis
A team of local students have sent their robot to Missouri and in just a few weeks they will join him to compete in a Robotics Championship.
The Titanium Wrecks have screwed in every last screw and polished every corner of their robot “Flick” just in time for its big debut at the first robotics FRC World Championship in Saint Louis. But the finishing touches are the easy part.
47 ABC spoke with one of the lead mentors of the team, William Mast, who tells us, “Quite literally we were soldering wires and turning screws up until twenty minutes before midnight. In the last two weeks we made everything fit, everything work together and then had a few days to test.”
The Titanium Wrecks are made up of 32 students in 8th through 12th grade who are all from Worcester County. They designed “Flick” to compete against other robots from all over the world to see which design can stack crates the best.
47 ABC also spoke with another lead mentor, Paul Suplee who tells us, “These kids put so much work into this that it’s amazing what they’ve been able to do. The power of this really is getting kids to understand what engineering is. It’s not just sitting at a desk drafting plans.”
And these kids are learning more than engineering. Each student has a task from finance to marketing safety community outreach and charity and each student takes it very seriously. Taylor Hawkins is the business captain and she loves it so much she now wants to major in business in college.
Hawkins tells 47 ABC, “It’s incredible to be part of titanium wrecks as a group leader this year its really amazing to see how far our team has gone and how excited everyone is about pursuing first.”
Jacob Mast is the mechanical captain. He says in the past two years the team has gone to other competitions expecting to do well but this year he is extra confident.
Mast tells 47 ABC, “It’s phenomenal, it’s really exciting it means we’re building something substantial here and that’s really exciting for us.”
With most of the hard work behind them William Mast tells 47 ABC, “Watching the students be able to stand up and accomplish things themselves come up with their own strategies I think that was the most rewarding part.”
The cost of the competition is far from cheap. The Titanium Wrecks are looking to raise about another $11,500 to help out with travel costs as well as projects they will be working on in the future.
The competition takes place at the Edward Jones Dome in Saint Louis from April 22nd to the 25th. If you would like to help the team by donating you may do so by visiting: http://www.team-t-wrecks.org/
