Record crowd inspired by world’s largest celebration of young innovators and changemakers including LHS students at FIRST Championship in Detroit as more than 40,000 people attended to Watch Students Compete with Team-Built Robots

In the photo above is Loveland High School’s Team 5040

Back row (L to R) Jacob Chiarenzelli, Jackson Daumeyer, Loveland Superintendent Dr. Amy Crouse, Bryce Reinhold, Nate Matuszak, Chad Royal; Middle row (L to R) Kai Reinhold, Haley Dues, Matt Spitzley, Ben Kavouras; Back row (L to R) Stephanie Spitzley, Garrett Royal, Cooper Baumgarth and Kat Sanderson

Detroit – Last week, more than 15,000 students from around the world traveled to Detroit, putting their innovation skills to the test at the annual FIRST Championship Presented by Qualcomm® Incorporated, held at the Cobo Center and Ford Field, including Team 5040 from Loveland High School.

In the championship Loveland 5040 went undefeated in qualifying rounds and won the Ochoa division semifinals. The team ended their season as one of the top 12 teams with an impressive record of 82-10.

The four-day event came down to a heart-pounding conclusion Saturday night in front of thousands of cheering fans at Ford Field when teams competed in match finals for the FIRST® Robotics Competition and FIRST® Tech Challenge world championships. Four teams from Kalamazoo, Michigan; Clarkston, Michigan; Kingston, Ontario, Canada; and State College, Pennsylvania, were the FIRST Robotics Competition Winning Alliance for this year’s game, FIRST POWER UP^SM. Teams from Lexington, Massachusetts; Baden, Pennsylvania; and Lexington, Massachusetts, were the FIRST Tech Challenge RELIC RECOVERY^SM Winning Alliance.

Loveland 5040 earned their spot in Detroit by first qualifying through Ohio as the State Champion. The team then competed in the North Super Regional with the best 72 teams from 13 states where Loveland 5040 finished in the finalist alliance advancing them to Detroit.

“After watching the students in action in Detroit – I think I can officially say Team 5040 has made me a robotics groupie,” said Loveland Superintendent Dr. Amy Crouse, who Tweeted updates as the team progressed. “We are sincerely so very proud of this team, and we know they will return even bigger and better next year as the organization continues to grow.”

Students ages 6-18 participated in FIRST Championship Detroit. FIRST Championship, the world’s largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for students, kicked off last week with 15,000 students in Houston.

Among the participants, many earned honors for design excellence, competitive play, research, business plans, website design, and teamwork. A not-for-profit organization founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) inspires innovation and leadership in young people through engaging, team-based robotics challenges. Kamen invented of the segway.

In Detroit, 700 robotics teams from 37 countries across the four FIRST programs participated. More than 91,000 students on 3,650 teams from 37 countries competed during the 2018 season.

FIRST President Donald E. Bossi said: We’re marking the culmination of another fantastic FIRST season, and once again, we’ve had fantastic growth. More than half-a-million young people directly participated in our programs, which engaged 61,000 teams, an impressive 23 percent increase from just last year. We will not stop [growing] until all students have access to the education and experiences that FIRST programs provide.

“On behalf of my team I want to say a very special thank you to Superintendent Dr. Amy Crouse and LHS Principal Peggy Johnson for traveling to Detroit to watch us compete,” said LHS student and team member Garrett Royal. “They are some of our biggest supporters, and we are grateful to them. We also want to thank former athletic director, Juliann Renner, who supported us like we were one of her athletic teams, and LHS Teacher Phil Marchal and volunteer Mark Chast for starting and coaching this team seven years ago. We are thankful for your vision and leadership that has touched so many students over the years.”

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada, addressed FIRST supporters: What you do right here at FIRST is extraordinarily important. It’s not just about robotics. It’s not just about science. It’s about people. It’s about collaborating. It’s about making it happen. It’s about forming teams, mentoring teams, sharing your experience. Whether you are a volunteer, a donator, a sponsor, a supporter, a participant, a parent, a teacher, you make a difference, and here we just use the incredible world of science and technology to do so and we prepare the future in so many different ways.

FIRST® Tech Challenge World Championship

FIRST Tech Challenge students learn to think like engineers. Teams build robots from a reusable kit of parts, develop strategies, document their progress, and compete head to head. In the 2017-18 game, FIRST RELIC RECOVERY, teams work in an alliance to go on a robot adventure. The goal is to score more points than the opposing alliance during 150 seconds of game play that includes autonomous and driver-controlled periods.

Their performance at the FIRST World Championship earned Loveland 5040 an exclusive invitation to compete over the summer at the Maryland Technical Invitational (MTI). At MTI teams from all over the world will meet for a weekend of competition and learning. Scientists and engineers from the Space Sector of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory will speak about two of their cutting-edge missions, New Horizons and Dragonfly.

Team 5040, Nuts & Bolts, Loveland, Ohio was a Division Finalists in the Ochoa Division:

“It has been an amazing year, and we couldn’t have done it without incredible support,” said LHS Teacher and Robotics Coordinator Amy Stewart. “I want to send a huge thank you to Coach Chad Royal, Mentors Peter Kavouras, Eric Spitzley and Chris Reinhold.”