Robotics earns Inspiration Award, and a trip to Worlds

A05, a First Robotics Championship (FRC) team, will pack up its robot in a week and head to Houston for for the FRC World competition April 17-21.

This is the third straight year an Hood River Valley High School team has won a trip to Worlds. A05 is seeking local support for the  cost of attending Worlds, a right the team earned after winning the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award last weekend in Tacoma.  Adviser Jeff Blackman said, “This award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community.”

Guidelines for the award:

Extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering;

Extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts;

A commitment to science and technology education among the team, school, and community.

Achievement of the FIRST mission and ability to communicate that at the competition and away from it.

Efforts are ongoing, not strictly concentrated on the build and competition season. In all criteria, the team had to show “measurable success of those efforts,” according to Blackman.

“The team is excited to compete at Worlds in Houston and is busy arranging flights, rooms, transportation and final details on the robot,” Blackman said.

“It’s a big deal. This is super-competitive,” Superintendent Dan Goldman said in congratulating the team during Wednesday’s School Board meeting, and thanked the parent volunteers and sponsors.