Hardin Co. high's robotics team returns from Iowa event as national champions, now gearing up for worldwide competition later this month in Louisville
News-Enterprise, Elizabethtown, April 11, 2017
Central Hardin Vex Robotics team wins national title
Area groups prepare for World competition later this month in Louisville
By Greg Thompson
Andrew Schreacke has been unable to sleep and for good reason: He’s part of a Vex Robotics national championship team.
The team leader for the Central Hardin High School Vex Robotics team helped his squad claim the national title during a three-day CREATE Foundation U.S. Open Robotics Championship at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said Schreacke, a junior. “I’m not really sure there’s a word for it. I couldn’t go to bed just thinking how amazing everything was.”
Even a couple of days after the win, Schreacke found himself still caught up in the moment as the other EC3 teams cheered and screamed the last few seconds of the championship match while their robots “were hurling everything across the field.”
He described it as being just like the final scene in practically every movie where the hero defeats the villain or the cowboy rides away into the sunset on his trusty horse.
“The final buzzer — oh, man!” he said. “It was just everything and more.”
The team claimed victory along with their alliance partners, Slim Margins Robotics Team of Abrams, Wisconsin, and Xavier High School of Appleton, Wisconsin.
Central Hardin’s team — 6135W — prepared for the moment from the beginning of the school year.
Almost daily along the way, Schreacke and teammates Carter Hewitt, Theron Lowe and Cody Skelton programmed and practiced.
“We’ve done thousands of skill runs. We’ve tested it and we’ve fixed it, finding the little mistakes that don’t matter a lot of the times but can matter in the most crucial moments,” Schreacke said.
The team was able to make modifications that gave them a slight edge over the other 87 teams they faced in their division to earn a spot in the finals for the national competition.
Schreacke said competition was tough, making it difficult to dominate, and that is where those modifications came into play putting Central Hardin on top.
His team fell behind in the best-of-three title matches, losing early, but the students came back determined and won the next two to claim the title.
Winning every autonomous — 15-second programing competitions — earned Central Hardin extra points going into the matches, which proved to be an extra cushion.
Schreacke’s team also won other awards — second in Robot Skills, Green Division Tournament Champions and the Excellence Award. Central’s other team, 6135H, won third in Robot Skills and John Hardin High School’s robotics team, 2886B, also earned designations in Build Award and as a Mega Alliance Finalist.
The World Vex Competition is from April 19 to 22 in Louisville.
Seven Hardin County Schools Early College and Career Center teams from Central Hardin, John Hardin and North Hardin high schools and West Hardin and East Hardin middle schools will represent Hardin County.
Knowing there always are teams that will be better, Schreacke said, Central Hardin cannot sit back and enjoy the victory for long.
“(We need to see) what they’re capable of and (be prepared) when the time comes that we’re going to be able to face those guys head-to-head,” Schreacke said.
The team will be practicing more skill and driver runs over the next week and a half, making sure everything is at peak performance.
Should anything break down, the team must keep its composure, make repairs, finish a match then move on to the next one, Schreacke said.
Vex Robotics is the largest student robotics organization in the world, with students from elementary to high school taking part in various competitions.
Jason Neagle, EC3 instructor, compared the competition to the Kentucky Derby.
“It’s like the most exciting two minutes in robotics,” he said, regarding each match.
Top teams from across the country along with teams from China and Canada competed in the tournament in Iowa. Neagle said it was a good precursor to prepare the students for the World competition.
He said he is proud of all of the teams, knowing how hard they worked all year to define the problem, do the necessary research, build the robot, test it and re-design it.
Schreacke plans to continue in the Vex Robotics program at EC3 his senior year, then pursue an engineering degree at the University of Louisville. From there, he has dreams of designing and building animatronics for Disney.
Five other EC3 teams — representing Central Hardin and John Hardin — also qualified and took part in the tournament.