Black Hawk Robotics celebrates successful season with awards ceremony – Blue Ribbon News

(HEATH, TX June 7, 2017) The Rockwall-Heath High School Black Hawk Robotics team celebrated its state championship-winning season with an awards ceremony recognizing its standout team members on Monday, June 5.

The following students were honored with awards during the celebratory event, held in the cafeteria at Rockwall-Heath High School:

Darius Day Team Spirit Brandon Diaz Humor Under Fire Garrett Short Gracious Professionalism Geovanni Copioli Rookie All Star Katie Layton Outstanding Veteran Madison Drake Outstanding Leadership Kamrey Mantz Team MVP (non robot) Ben Selle Build Team (Robot) MVP

Each of the teams six volunteer mentors also received honorary plaques during the event.

Black Hawk Robotics Coach Leslie Reese said the students put in well over 400 hours after school throughout the season, including Saturdays and some Sundays a testament to their work ethic and dedication.

Reese said the team started the season with one goal in mind qualifying for the Einstein Round Robin of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Not only did they qualify, the team came away victorious at Einstein and eventually went on to win the Texas UIL Robotics State Championship, capping off their most successful season yet.

The students biggest strength was being able to work together as a team, with the drivers telling the pit crew whats wrong with the robot so they can fix it really fast, the scouts being able to pick the right robots that were going to pair with, that type of thing. Since they get along so well, they communicated very well. Its all communication, and it all has to come together to have a successful season like this, Reese said.

Ive seen us grow as a team a lot, said Rockwall-Heath Junior and Team Media Captain Kamrey Mantz. We were kind of shaky at first, but we have our own little groups that we work with so its pretty productive. Its a good system we make sure everyones involved all the time.

Pit Crew Captain Ben Selle said the robot performed at a high level in competition despite going through a number of changes throughout the season.

If you saw the robot at the start of the season, it looks nothing like it does now. Definitely a lot of iteration, we completely changed everything on there. But the robot performed phenomenally. Towards the end of the season it was running just like we wanted it to run, Selle said.

By Austin Wells, Blue Ribbon News. Photos courtesy of Black Hawk Robotics.

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Black Hawk Robotics celebrates successful season with awards ceremony - Blue Ribbon News