Loveland Magazine

LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

Tag: Nuts & Bolts

  • Loveland FIRST Tech Challenge Team advances to World Championship

    Loveland FIRST Tech Challenge Team advances to World Championship

    Team 10464 The Bionic Tigers at the KY State FTC Championship

    The Bionic Tigers will be competing in the World Championship in Houston, TX from April 20-23.  The World Championship features 160 of the top FTC Teams from over 6300 teams around the world, and this is the 3rd year in a row The Bionic Tigers have qualified for Worlds.

    Loveland, Ohio – Loveland FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Teams 10464, The Bionic Tigers, and 5040, Nuts & Bolts, competed in the Ohio FTC Championship on March 5. The event, which was held remotely, included presentations to a panel of judges where teams had the opportunity to share the design and development of their robot, their outreach efforts to support STEM and robotics in their community, and their involvement with industry professionals. Teams also submitted scores for 6 robot matches, that were completed on their home fields, trying to score the maximum points possible in two and a half minute matches.  

    Based on their judging and robot performance, Team 5040, Nuts & Bolts, won the Motivate Award and 2nd place robot performance. The Motivate Award recognizes a team that makes a collective effort to make their team known throughout their community and school. Team 10464 won 4th place robot performance and the Think Award, which is the 2nd highest award for the event.  The Think Award is given to the team whose Engineering Portfolio best reflects the team’s journey through the design and build process for their robot.   

    Team 10464 The Bionic Tigers also competed on March 12 at the Kentucky FTC State Championship at Murray St. University. This competition was their first in-person competition in 2 years due to Covid restrictions, and the event included teams from Kentucky, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  

    At the start of the day, the Bionic Tigers and all competing teams presented to panels of judges for evaluation for awards. Teams also submitted a 15-page engineering portfolio summarizing all of their robot design and development, outreach work with other teams and the community, and connections with the professional STEM community. Following judging, they competed in 6 rounds of qualifying matches and were ranked 3rd in a very competitive field. The top 4 ranked teams became the alliance captains for the elimination rounds, and the Bionic Tigers selected two Kentucky teams as alliance partners. They lost a close match in the semi-finals, and the 1st seed alliance went on to win the robot portion of the competition.


    Team 5040 Nuts & Bolts

    To close out the exciting day, in the awards ceremony the Bionic Tigers won the top award of the event, the Inspire Award. This award recognizes the best all-around team that has shown success in designing and building a competitive robot and shares their experiences, enthusiasm, knowledge with other teams, sponsors, their community, and the judges. The Bionic Tigers also won Promote Award for their video answering the prompt “If there was one thing I would tell my younger self about FIRST it would be…”. 

    As the Inspire Award winner, the Bionic Tigers have advanced to the FTC World Championship in Houston, TX from April 20-23.

    Loveland FTC teams are supported by many generous sponsors including Loveland American Legion Post 256, Sugar Creek Foods, Procter & Gamble, Standex Electronics, CBT Company, Kinetic Vision, Harlow Law Office, and Jarvis Global Investments.

    The Bionic Tigers are seeking additional sponsors to help cover the travel costs for the World Championship in Houston. Please contact lovelandroboticsboosters@gmail.com if you are interested in helping sponsor the trip.

    Loveland Robotics Boosters will be hosting Breakfast with the Bots, a pancake Breakfast fundraiser, on Saturday, April 9.  Tickets are available at www.lovelandroboticsboosters.org. 

  • Two FIRST Tech Challenge Teams from Loveland High School Will Compete at the State Championship in March

    Two FIRST Tech Challenge Teams from Loveland High School Will Compete at the State Championship in March

    Nuts & Bolts (in orange shirts) and The Bionic Tigers (in black) have both qualified for the Ohio FIRST Tech Challenge Championship on March 14. The teams were part of the Cincinnati Qualifier’s Winning Alliance with Anderson’s Rising Tau.

    Loveland, Ohio – “It is really cool that this was the third year in a row that a Loveland team was part of the winning alliance at the Cincinnati Qualifier, and even more so, the second year in a row that both teams were on it,” said The Bionic Tigers’ Business Lead Mitchell McManis.

    Nuts & Bolts, top-ranked after five qualifying matches in the morning, picked The Bionic Tigers and Rising Tau from Anderson High School as alliance partners for the elimination rounds. The teams went on to the finals, where they won two matches and ended up crowned the competition’s Winning Alliance.

    Loveland High School’s FIRST Tech Challenge Teams 5040 (Nuts & Bolts) and 10464 (The Bionic Tigers) competed on January 25 at the Cincinnati Qualifier at Walnut Hills High School, where teams from Central and Southwest Ohio competed for three coveted advancement spots to the Ohio FIRSTTech Challenge Championship.

    Nuts & Bolts received the coveted first place Inspire Award and were finalists for the Connect and Think Awards. The Bionic Tigers received the Ohio Gracious Professionalism and Control Awards, and were finalists for the Design and Motivate Awards. The Bionic Tigers’ mentor, John Rasmussen, won the Compass Award.

    “We had a great time at the tournament,” said Nuts & Bolts Team Lead Ethan Astifan. “It was a ton of fun to win alongside our friends from our own school as well as from across Ohio, and it was really satisfying to see our hard work recognized by winning the Inspire Award.”

  • Two more Loveland robotics teams qualify for State level tournaments

    Two more Loveland robotics teams qualify for State level tournaments

    The Loveland High School winning alliance at the December VEX Robotics Competition qualifying tournament.

    Loveland, Ohio – Loveland Robotics hosted its very first VEX Robotics Competition qualifying tournament on December 22. Nineteen teams from the local area competed in the tournament, including teams from Milford, Indian Hill, Mariemont, and seven teams from Loveland. The winning alliance was two Loveland High School teams, which qualified the teams to state. A third Loveland High School team won the Sportsmanship Award at the competition.

    With all of the recent robotics news and events, here is some background on the Loveland Robotics Program: It started as a single FIRSTLego League (FLL) team in 2005 and then added one FIRSTTech Challenge (FTC) team in 2011. In 2015, the program began to expand with the addition of several new teams. The Loveland Robotics Boosters was formed in 2017 to support the Robotics Teams of Loveland City Schools, and was officially recognized as a booster organization by the Loveland Board of Education in September 2018.  Their mission is to foster growth of technology and innovation through funding, volunteerism, and educational outreach.

    Loveland Robotics now supports over 100 Loveland students on 15 teams in five different programs.

    Loveland Robotics now supports over 100 Loveland students on 15 teams in five different programs. These include three FIRSTLEGO League Jr (FLL Jr) teams, threeFIRSTLEGO League (FLL) teams, three middle school VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) teams, four high school VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) teams, and two FIRSTTech Challenge (FTC) teams.

    To support these programs and help provide competition opportunities in the local area, Loveland Robotics hosted an FTC scrimmage in November and a VRC Qualifying Tournament in December. Loveland Robotics is also hosting the Cincinnati area FLL District Tournament in January, and Loveland High School will be the site of the Ohio FTC Championship in February.

    The 2018-2019 competition season is off to a great start as FTC Team 5040, Nuts & Bolts, has qualified for both the Ohio FTC Championship and World Competition. FTC Team 10464, The Bionic Tigers, has qualified for the Pennsylvania FTC Championship. VEX Teams 10565B and 10565D have both qualified for the Ohio VRC High School State Championship. FLL Team 38182, Mercury’s Mechanics, has qualified for the District FLL tournament.

    Applications for next year’s teams will be available in early April and links will be posted on the Loveland Robotics website (http://lovelandrobotics.weebly.com/). Students who would like to know more about the Loveland Robotics Program can emailstewaram@lovelandschools.org.

    Loveland Magazine is a sponsor of Loveland Robotics.

  • Loveland Robotics Team 5040 once again qualifies for the World Championship

    Loveland Robotics Team 5040 once again qualifies for the World Championship

    Loveland Robotics Team 5040 (Nuts & Bolts) has qualified for the FTC World Championship, which will be held in Detroit in April 2019.

    Loveland, Ohio – FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Teams 5040 and 10464 both competed in the West Virginia FTC State Championship on December 2 in Fairmont, WV. Team 5040 (Nuts & Bolts) was captain of the winning alliance and qualified to move on to the FTC World Championship in Detroit in April. This is the third consecutive year that the team has qualified for the world competition. 5040 also received third place for the Design Award.

    Team 10464 (The Bionic Tigers) competed in the West Virginia FTC State Championship, bringing home several awards.

    Team 10464 (The Bionic Tigers) won the Connect Award for “the team that most connects with their local science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) community.” 10464 also received second place for the Motivate Award and second place for the Think Award. (Detailed descriptions of the various awards can be found here.)

    Both teams will be competing again this month. Team 10464 will compete on December 8 in Pennsylvania and 5040 will compete in Dayton, OH, on December 15. Loveland FTC teams are supported by their many generous sponsors, including Blue Chip Consulting, P&G, Jarvis Global Investments, Loveland American Legion, GE Foundation, Johnson Controls, and the Loveland Robotics Boosters. The program is always in need of sponsors and mentors. For more information, go to lovelandrobotics.com or email stewaram@lovelandschools.org.

    Jarvis Global is an investment advisory firm in Symmes Township, Ohio which offers private portfolio management and retirement services to high net worth individuals.