Back at the beginning of school we all wrote out one hope we had for the year, and it was put on the Wall of Hope above the Commons.

My hope that I wrote was “Worlds 2K18.” This meant going to the World Robotics Competition with my team.

This hope and dream came true! We spent many hours over several weeks preparing our robot for competition at district events.

At our district events we won an award called the “Engineering Inspiration Award”. This award allowed us to compete for the same award at the District Championships.

We were unable to attend the District Championships; however, we competed for the award over a phone interview.

At the end of the competition, we were announced as the winners of the award at the event. This qualified us to go to the World Championship in Houston Texas.

Chris Goolsby, a member of the team and a senior at Eagle River High School, said, “In no world did I expect our team to qualify for Worlds. This is the greatest thing that could’ve happened in my last year.”

I feel the same way. There is not a better way I would’ve wanted this year to end.

Wade Roach, coach of the team and engineering teacher at Dimond High School, said, “Our team has not gone to worlds for many years. This event is life changing for the students. They have put in so much work for this event. For a team of mostly seniors, they deserve this as their final bang.”

We were there with 407 other teams from all over the world. Seeing all of their cultures and designs is very inspiring.

This program brings the world together. It has no borders or boundaries, just fun!

Alex Lintelman, a member of the team and a freshman at Dimond High School , said, “This was an eye opening experience. I saw different cultures and learned how other people live around the world.”

We competed in a sub-division with 66 other teams. Each team played 10 matches with random alliances.

Roach said, “The team did very well with the resources they had. We had a rough build season this year. Our team was smaller than usual, and our members often didn’t attend meetings. I am proud of what they did, and couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.”

This event lasted four days and was filled with constant robot action.

The event was hosted at the largest convention center in North America, the George R. Brown Convention Center.

The facility was perfect or the event. All levels of the robotics program were able to compete in one facility. This allowed spectators to view all the programs in a single area.

Goolsby said, “I loved seeing how many designs there were for the same challenge.”

I tend to agree with him. Every team had a different solution to the same game. Some were better than others, but everyone at this level was successful at most aspects of the game.

The game was very fun to build and program a robot for. We had plenty of opportunity to build different designs to do different parts of the game.

This season was super fun and a great learning experience for the whole team.

This program has been my life for the last four years, and it has been the main reason for my success in school. I truly believe everyone should try and experience this program.

Anyone interested in engineering or technology would find an avenue for being creative in robotics. The payoff is seeing your solution work and being able to compete with other teams from all over the world.