Wahkiakum Mecha-Mules earn award at regional tournament

This unusual season of the First Tech Challenge robotics competition has ended after five months of practice, building, coding, more practice, presentations, 18 competition matches and then a final presentation to judges on Saturday. All done remotely. One strange season. Our team placed 15th out of 24 teams on the competition rankings and earned second place for the "Motivate" award. This is an excellent result for our young team given the stiff competition from the Seattle area schools. We very much appreciate the community support we have received: especially Mrs. Olsen's fourth grade class' help with our shooting experiments, the Wahkiakum Amateur Radio Club's "make 'em cry" practice grilling two weeks ago, and the enthusiastic send off by the Wahkiakum High School student body last week.

We are all set for a stronger season next year: the team continued tweaking, troubleshooting and innovating up through the very last match: truly engineering at its finest. Unlike athletics there are no school divisions - all schools compete in the same level no matter the student population - and, more importantly, there are no season limits. So, next season starts this coming Friday with building and coding practice scheduled all summer long. We are looking for a few technical mentors and a few more 8th-12th grade team members. This is a good time for new folks to start learning about high school level robotics. Contact Wahkiakum High School or Wahkiakum 4-H if interested.