TCU to send robotics team to State
After school is over for the day, some Tri-City United students practice basketball, their band instruments or wrestling skills. But another group builds robots and enters them into competitions.
One group just won a trip to State.
The robots are created by the students in the TCU Robotics Club. High School science and engineering teacher, John Head, advises the club of 25 students. He said several teams competed at a regional competition on Saturday, Nov. 19 in Mankato, and the TCU team, Robochicks made up of Madison Prochaska, Sadie Selchow, Lizzie Trnka, and Kelly Vlasak, and their handmade robot secured a State trip at the competition.
“It’s not what we were expecting at our first tournament,” Head said. “But the lowest score we received was a 26 out of 31 points.”
The TCU Club, now in its third year, has never fared well at the competitions. In their first year, they took last place. Last year was no better. This year, the Club had enough funding to attend two tournaments. Head said they planned to use the first one in Mankato to iron out bugs before really competing in the second one. Now, he said, the Club plans to bring different teams to the next competition with the hope of eventually sending more TCU teams to State.
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