The DarBots robotics team placed 37th last week at the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship in St. Louis, Mo. The annual tournament is the final showdown once over 300 regional competitions have taken place, showcasing the efforts of 4,450 teams and over 45,000 students.
The three-day tournament took place at the Edward Jones Dome and Union Station, as the DarBots joined 127 of the best programs from around the world, including the U.S. and 12 countries.
Initially an alternate team, Darlington students and faculty received news of the group's eligibility just a few days before the start of the event. Another team had dropped out, opening the door for the DarBots to come to Missouri. Parent organization Tiger PRIDE stepped up and was able to contribute funds to help defray the cost of an exciting but unplanned opportunity.
At the championship students were met with a variety of different challenges including object retrieval and robot automation that took programming skills to their limits.
"Robotics is very much like a business. Each project requires real innovation and accountability," said DarBots coach Owen Kinney. "This is a legitimate team project where everyone has a job to do that utilizes our students' different strengths."
Attending the competition were Hannah Harper (‘15), Ash Herndon (‘17), Ian Kinney (‘17), Moana Kubo (‘15), Stevenson Walker (‘15), Oliver Wang (‘18), Philip Woford (‘18), Tate Wongweeratorn (‘15), Yutian Wu (‘15), and coaches Owen Kinney and Henrik Malmberg. Together with their coaches, Darlington's robotics team includes representation from five different countries speaking five different native languages.
"It was so fascinating to watch them go from typical teenagers cutting up over lunch, to mature engineers when the competition was going on," said Stephanie (Smith) Walker ('83), a Darlington parent who made the trip up with the group. "The kids discussed and deliberated—they were completely focused on the task at hand."
While the event is competitive in nature, the gathering of like-minded peers and their advisers also creates a collaborative atmosphere where attendees can learn from one another, regardless of the expected boundaries that are created. The competition offers opportunities for students and faculty alike to grow in their knowledge and mastery of the technology as they prepare for future competitions.
Even though the competition circuit has for now come to a close, the practical skills and life lessons gleaned will continue to follow the students into the summer and beyond.
"Robotics for me is a tool to discover future possibilities. Technology is the tool that makes this great discovery possible," said Yutian Wu. "Competition excites the progress of technology, and robotics can bring human beings to discover the infinitely unknown in the universe."
"What my son has gotten out of Robotics is priceless," added Walker. "What he has learned about the real world is unmatched."
Four returning students will take the lead on the Robotics team next year, as the DarBots plan and prepare to return to next year's world championship.
"We’ve come far, but we still have a long way to go," said Kinney. "We know what it takes to be a world-class team. We have to make our competition the entire world."
Click here for more information about the FIRST Tech Challenge.
