8TH GRADE ROBOTICS TEAM REACHES STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR THE FIRST TIME
The Greenhills 8th Grade Robotics team had a successful season. This year the team qualified for and competed in the 2023 FIRST Robotics Michigan State Championships held on Dec. 15-17 —a ‘first’ for the middle school team. Team 9895 finished 12th out of the 36 teams in their division and was named a finalist for the competition’s Motivate Award.
“The team worked very hard all season and achieved everything it set out to do,” said robotics mentor Charles Dershimer, who works alongside the other mentors Jeremy Green and Christina Greenfield. “They had some great pit work, scouting, cheering, driving, coaching, and autonomous efforts on the field. But the mentors are most proud of the way the team competed; our students exemplified dedication to teamwork and modeled the FTC Robotics program’s tenants of gracious professionalism, and ‘coopertition.’”
The middle school team set lofty goals for the season, and its number one goal was to reach the state championship and win awards. To do that, the team had to achieve its other goals: Learn from a record of our practice and our mistakes, plan for growth, and design a process for the engineering portfolio. All of those things came together in early December at the league tournament in Mason, where The Lawnmowers, as the Greenhills robotics team is affectionately known, won the Connect Award for its outstanding engineering portfolio, presentation, and judges interviews in the pits. The team was also a Think Award finalist.
“We are so grateful to the community that has been so generous in its support,” said Dershimer, “from our strategic partners, Leon Speakers and the University of Michigan Autonomous Robotic Vehicle (UMARV) team, to our supportive parent mentors, Eric, Giles, and Moses, and our upper school team mentor Ethan. But most of all, we’re grateful to our team members. Each moment was truly enjoyable and fun and we are proud to be a part of Greenhills history.”
