Two Bellefontaine City Schools robotics teams advanced to the World VEX competition over the weekend.
The B-Town Bots High School and Middle School teams competed at the Ohio State Vex competition in Marion on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, Bellefontaine Middle School teams 7865E Slurp-Ez and 7865C Microsoft competed at the state meet, which featured the top 60 teams from across Ohio.
Slurp-Ez qualified for the elimination tournament. Unfortunately, their alliance lost in the first round ending their competition day.
At the end of the competition, Slurp-Ez earned the THINK Award – a judged award for clean, consistent, and reliable programming.
The THINK Award is a qualifying award and earned Slurp-Ez a spot in the World VEX competition in Dallas, Texas, in April.
Slurp-Ez is the first Bellefontaine Middle School team to qualify for the World event.
The Slurp-Ez team members are Trinity Fout, Marek Frazier, Brody Miranda, and Cody Robb.
The Microsoft team includes Will Gates, Graham Trittschuh, and Charlie Moreland.
On Saturday, Bellefontaine High School teams 9185A - FOAM and 9185B - BIOHAZARD competed against the top 84 high school teams in the state.
Both teams had a good showing in skills and the qualification matches.
9185A - FOAM earned a spot in the elimination tournament. Their alliance won their first match but lost in the second round.
During the awards program, 9185A - FOAM earned the DESIGN Award.
This is the second highest award presented to any team in the state. The prestigious award qualified FOAM to the World VEX Competition in Dallas next month.
The FOAM team members are junior Alex Cavanaugh along with sophomores Ryann Gatchel, Lorenz Henry, Hayden Maus, and Mason Swisher.
The BIOHAZARD team includes freshmen Dalton Frazier, Alex Sandoval, Andy McDonald, and Brayden Studnicki.
BHS robotics are coached by Micah Woolf and Dustin Van Buskirk.
BMS robotics are coached by Sandi Chervenak and Jordan Reser.
Photos, left to right: Ryann Gatchel, Mason Swisher, Lorenz Henry, Alex Cavanaugh, and Hayden Maus
Trinity Fout, Cody Robb, Brody Miranda, and Marek Frazier
