TechnoHuskies Robotics Team Secures State Championship, Advances to World Competition
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The TechnoHuskies, a robotics team from Jefferson Middle School, achieved a remarkable victory at the FIRST Tech Challenge state Championship NW in Muskegon on December 12-13, winning both the prestigious Inspire Award and first place overall amongst 72 competing teams. This achievement propels the team to the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, Texas, from April 29 to May 2, where they will face off against 336 teams representing at least 30 countries.
A Top Honor Reflects Holistic Excellence
The Inspire Award is considered the highest honor awarded at a FIRST Tech Challenge event. It recognizes a team that consistently demonstrates excellence across multiple judging categories, showcasing not only strong robotics skills but also a commitment to innovation, teamwork, and community engagement. According to the team’s head coach, earning this award and achieving top placement in the alliance rounds demonstrated the technohuskies’ comprehensive strengths.
Building Confidence Through STEM Education
The success of the TechnoHuskies is deeply rooted in a coaching philosophy focused on fostering individual student growth within the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). “My goal as a coach for each robotics season is to make it a place where each student can see themselves in STEM, explore what it’s actually like to do it and gain the confidence that they can,” stated head coach Tim De Vries, who has been involved with the team since 2021.”And they couldn’t have won this award without exceeding that goal.”
This isn’t the team’s first foray onto the state and national stage.The TechnoHuskies have been competing at the state level since 2015 and previously qualified for the World Championship in 2020, though the competition was regrettably cancelled that year.
Student Ownership and Skill Progress
De Vries emphasized the students’ ownership of the entire robotics process, noting, “I am extremely proud of the hard work the students put in, and this award shows the kids’ ownership of all aspects of FIRST Robotics. They learned, shared, and solved problems, and could represent their journey well to the judges who came by over the course of the day.”
Students themselves highlighted the valuable skills gained through participation. Lily Kelly, an eighth-grader at Jefferson, explained, “Robotics has helped me learn skills in presentation, writing technical documents, and learning how to work with others.” Fellow eighth-grader Ethan Chen added, “I learned about programming how the robot moves, how sensors work, and how we can use Java to combine these things together to make the robot accomplish what we want it to do. I’m also very excited for our world game because we get to meet teams from countries all over the world and see how their creative designs can tackle this year’s challenge.”
Team Composition and Support
The TechnoHuskies comprise 11 dedicated students – two sixth-graders, three seventh-graders, and six eighth-graders – guided by three coaches: Tim De Vries, Xiaoyun chen, and Ashish Gupta. Each team member contributed to the collective success throughout the season.
the team expressed gratitude for the support of