LT Robotics Team takes 3rd in State, qualifies for Nationals

The Lyons Township High School Robotics Team qualified for the state championship by placing first at a competition hosted by Evanston High School. LT beat more than 40 robots in a stacking challenge in order to qualify. The state competition was seeded from champions across Illinois and consisted of 44 robots. LT finished in 3rd place at the state competition, which guaranteed them a spot at the World Robotics Championship in April.

The competition is a predetermined challenge made by VEX Robotics. In this challenge, students create a robot that can move a 10 pound cone, stack cones on top of it, and drive over pvc pipes in order to score points. Each match is two minutes and starts with an autonomous 15 seconds, where the robots are programmed by the students to score points. Depending on the skill level of the programmer, different robots will score a range of points. LT’s programmer is senior Tim Houston and the team has a high scoring autonomous program. After the 15 seconds, driver control begins and students control the robots with remotes/gamepads for the next 1:45. At the end of the match, a referee adds up the amount of cones stacked and placed in the scoring zone to see which teams have won.

Image: LT’s 3rd place Robotics state finishers seniors John Brown, of LaGrange, Nick Hughes, of LaGrange Park, Tim Houston, of LaGrange, and Jonathan Duelm, of LaGrange.