Robotics team wins world championship – White Bear Press

A local Shoreview FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team, Height Differential, won the world championship in St. Louis last month.

Height Differential competed with 128 teams from all over the world. There were 30,000 attendees at the championship. Team Height Differentialended in a very dramaticfinish as 1st placeCaptainof the winning allianceand they were also nominated as one of four finalists for the Inspire award. The Inspire award is the top award givento teams in theFTCrobotics program.

The teamhad previously won the Minnesota State FTC Championship in February and were recognized with several awards including the 1st place Inspire award.

Grant Altenhofen, Akash DSousa, John Helgeson and Nick Riedel make up this small Shoreview neighborhood team and aresophomores and juniors at Mounds View High School.

The team will go on to compete at the Festival of Champions in Manchester New Hampshire in July to join the topeight FTC teams in the world. While there they will compete for one last time this season, tour the FIRST national headquarters andthe DEKA Research and Development Corporation and have dinner with Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST and DEKA.

The FIRSTTech Challengerobotics program had about 5,500 teams competing this year from more than 40 countries around the world and Minnesota had 169 teams this year, many of which are located in the Shoreview area and Mounds View School District.

The team is currently working with other local teams and Mounds View High Schoolto addFIRSTTech Challenge to its existingFIRSTFRC program as a recognized student activityconsistent in the District withIrondale High School which already has both robotics programs. The team currently receives no supportfrom the school district.

The team thanks its local sponsors ASTER Labs, Inc. of Shoreview, Gooch Gooch Creative LLC of Shoreview, Machining Technologyof Fridley, SEH of Vadnais Heights,and Gopher Electronics of Little Canada.

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Robotics team wins world championship - White Bear Press