Photo Credit: Keith Lumley, Pequot Lakes School District

The Pequot Lakes robotics team recently competed at this year’s World Robotics Championship in Houston, TX, placing 40th out of 75 teams. Their coach says it was a trip they will never forgot.

First Robotics Mentor Keith Lumley said that the team played well, and didn’t lose to anyone. He shared that the team finished with a record of 5-5 in their 10 qualification matches. Though the team experienced some tough matches, they only lost one match by 1 point and another by 3.

Once all 10 matches were complete, the team was ranked 40th out of 75 teams. But he added that their individual performance was better, saying that most of the scouting charts, where teams scout each robot for individual stats, had the Pequot Lakes team’s robot with the 15th-20th highest score in their division.

“At the end of the 10 qualification the top 8 ranked individual teams draft other teams to be apart of their alliance,” Lumley said. “We were chosen to join an alliance and got to play during the playoffs at worlds for the first time in program history.”

Lumley said that this was the team’s third time competing at the world meet. But unfortunately, the team was not selected to join an alliance team for division playoffs due to their alliance losing in their first two matches in the playoffs. “They were close matches, and every team performed awesome,” Lumley added.

Coming into the world championship, the Pequot Lakes team averaged about 11.5 shots were made per match, and with some adjustments in Houston, the team was able to get their average score up to 14 shots per game.

“We even had a high score of making 19 balls in one match, followed by another 18 ball performance,” said Lumley. “The kids were super excited the entire time, and it’s awesome for them to hear that other students were watching our matches.”

By — Emma Hudziak