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The freshman in Ruston Pennington’s Principles of Applied Engineering: from left, Kobe Walker, Clancy Mayo, Emily Soto, Isabelle Thesing, Michael Munoz and Jimmy Graham. Courtesy/Rusty Pennington -
The students in Pennington’s Robotics I and II classes: from left, Logan McClung, Grant Mohesky, Austin McCain, James Draper, Matthew Robinson, Daniel Soto, Saul Mireles, Jakson Medelline, Fabian Perez, Stanley Alba, Benjamin Grinnan, Marco Rivera, Luis Ruiz and Savannah Lilley.
Next event to be in February
SSHS
The SSHS Robotics team competed against 38 teams in the Collin County B.E.S.T. Robotics Competition last weekend.
The team had a very hard day fighting equipment failures, and the competition was very strong. The team could not participate in the game, but they did score about six points out of the 15 available tournament points for their overall place.
The competition was more than just the team’s performance in the game. Some students represented the team with an expo booth that was an arcade powered by a bicycle generator. Others had to sell the robot in a formal marketing pitch to a panel of investors like the TV show Shark Tank.
Their efforts in design and development were put together in a Engineering Notebook. Each of these aspects of the competition were worth more points in the tournament than the game performance.
Students scored in all areas, and although the team’s overall place tournament has not been revealed yet, they did not advance to state since only the top two large schools advance.
“I’m extremely proud of their effort on competition day and their attitudes in the face of difficulty,” Robotics teacher Ruston Pennington said. “They kept working until the last seeding round and worked continuously to do the best they could.”
The team will compete next in February and hope to repeat their wins at district and state.