Congratulations to the Robotics Team

I received the following email from our high school robotics teacher Mr. Jeff Newsom.  He coaches the high school robotics team and they did very well in their competition last weekend.  The email will explain how well we did, but I also want to discuss a conversation I had with Mr. Newsom this morning as he was telling me about the competition.  Mr. Newsom told me a few times how proud he was of the hard work the students put in to win all of these awards.  He has students in his room before school, after school and during classes to work on the robots and learn how to improve them more.  The amount of time and dedication that the students put into this project is amazing…but the results are amazing as well.  Anytime a school can engage students in their passion, great learning will occur.  Mr. Newsom is also one of those teachers that demands excellence while at the same time knowing what it takes to keep the students motivated.  Congratulations to the students and Mr. Newsom!

Here is Mr. Newsom's email:

On Saturday, the robotics team competed in the Western Pennsylvania VEX World Cup Qualifier.  The students had designed, built, and programmed three robots to compete in the competition.  There were 22 robots from the region that competed including schools from Plum, Johnstown, McKeesport, Beaver, Frazier, Eastern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center among others.

    Teams were competing for two Skill Events, Tournament Champions, and the Excellence Award.  The tournament champions would qualify to compete at the National Championships in Omaha Nebraska, in March, and an opportunity to qualify for the World Championship.  The Excellence Award winner would go to the best overall robot and automatically qualify them to compete in the World Championships in Anaheim CA, in April.

    PT's Robotics teams, who had qualified for Worlds the last two years, saved their best for their senior year.  The three robots finished 1, 2, 3 in the preliminary rounds that determined the seeding for the head to head tournament.  The team won not only both Skills Challenges, but a National Championship birth by winning the Tournament and also won the Excellence Award for best overall robot and earning a birth to the World Championships.  Two out of the three robots are moving on while the third missed by one point.

    Congratulations to the following students for their hard work and perseverance:
    Bryan Wilson
    Tyler Silcox
    Nathaniel Heydt
    Evan Tatarka
    Jordan Locke
    And also to Bryans brother Mark, who was a big help loading the robots during the competition.