St. George’s robotics team takes second place at regional meet

St. George’s took the second-highest award, the Engineering Inspiration Award, at the Robotics Northwest Regional competition held March 3 in Portland.

This is the third year the school has participated. The team will go on to compete in the national competition in Atlanta in April.

Teams of high school students and their mentors have six weeks to build a robot from a kit of parts. They have a set of rules to solve a problem, and their robots compete against other teams in a regional competition with the winners going on to the finals.

“It was a lot of fun. The key is to have a mentor, a partnership with business and industries. These people become students’ role models. It’s really about inspiring kids to have heroes outside of sports and entertainment,” said Rick DeFord, St. George’s physics teacher and robotics advisor.

Fifty-four teams, including 14 rookie teams competed at the Northwest Regional. Worldwide a record 1,300 teams, including 260 rookies participated in this year’s competition.

Teams from Central Valley, East Valley and West Valley high schools and Bonners Ferry High School in North Idaho competed for the first time this year. Bonners Ferry won the Rookie Inspiration Award, the second-highest award in the rookie category.

East Valley and Central Valley made it into the championship round and West Valley had a great drive system, said DeFord.

“I thought they did an awesome job. They learned a lot, and the mentors were really excited,” DeFord said.

The St. George’s team also won the Delphi Driving Tomorrow’s Technology award for developing an “elegant and advantageous machine feature.”