GLADSTONE — The Gladstone robotics team, the BraveBots, secured a second blue banner at the district tournament in Sault Ste. Marie this past weekend. Coach Barron reported that his team which is made up of 20 students from Gladstone, Rapid River and home schoolers “are hitting all the high notes this year. This group of kids just finds a way to get the job done. This weekend was a perfect example of how they can pull together and make great things happen.”

The BraveBots were able to finish qualification rounds ranked number one seed with a record of 12-0. The next step was to select an alliance (a team of three teams) to compete in the finals bracket against another group of three. They were able to select an alliance made up of teams from Belmont and Mackinaw Island.

The alliance came up with a solid plan to work through the tournament bracket and ended up in the finals against the second seeded alliance. Finals requires the two alliances to compete in a best out of three series. In the first match of finals both robots paired with the BraveBots broke down under the stage area which would result in penalties for the team at the end of the match. “It’s not unusual for one robot to break down during a match but to have both go down is a deal breaker. We were in a situation where it was us against three other robots,” said Barron. BraveBot driver Matthew Hagebusch was able to use his robot to push the broken bots out of the penalty area while working with his co-driver Logan Vesser to continue to score points for their team and secure the win. “This move demonstrated a high level of confidence and understanding of how to individually compete within a team,” said Barron. “I’m not sure how those kids kept their cool because it was very stressful”.

After the match they still needed to win one more to secure the title. The Belmont robot had a loose wire and was an easy fix. With only seconds left before they had to play the final match Mackinac Island resolved their own electrical issue and was able to compete. The BraveBot’s alliance went on to win the final match and secure their second blue banner of their season.

Peyton Rohr, team captain stated that “Every key position on our team is filled with new or young people and I am amazed at how quick they are able to step up and work together in order to accomplish whatever comes our way”.

One of Barron’s principles is that “the harder you work, the luckier you get. We’ve never had two blue banners in our 13 years of existence. We are incredibly thankful for that. It doesn’t happen without a lot of support from our students, mentors, sponsors and community.”

The BraveBots are currently ranked number one in the state and will go on to compete in the state tournament April 4 – 6. All matches can be seen on bluealliance.com.