Inspire at Allen

By Bhanaviya

This weekend, SEM sent four teams to the first qualifying tournament of the FIRST Tech Challenge 2019-2020 season. Iron Reign (6832) was a finalist in robot game and won the top award (Inspire) and has advanced to the Regional Championship in February.

Left to right: Karina Lara, Justin Bosnell, Benjamin Bruick, Aaron Daane, Cooper Clem, Bhanaviya Venkat, Trey Davis, Jose Lomeli. Not shown: Paul Lea and mentors Karim Virani, Catherine Lux and John Gray.

Imperial Robotics (3734), was 8th place in match play, the highest qualification ranking of our 4 teams, and made it into the semifinals playoffs, but was then eliminated in their second semifinals match.

Iron Golem (15375) was 11th in qualifying rounds, and won 3 out of their 5 matches. Their impressive performance at the first tournament for this all rookie team has set them up for a more successful experience at the next qualifier on January 11.

Iron Core (15373), another all rookie team, was 16th in qualifying rounds, and demonstrated coolness under stress as they experienced persistent issues with robot disconnections. They are already hard at work aiming for their next qualifier.

Our thanks go out to all of the people and sponsors who have supported us already this season, including but not limited to: Mr. Schelanko and Mr. Marx and the Dallas ISD STEM Department, Mr. Gray our faculty sponsor, Mr. Palacios and SEM staff, Ms. Huitt, The Texas Workforce Commission, FIRST in Texas, DEKA, Patrick Michaud - our FIRST FTC Regional Affiliate, Fried Elliott - Regional Judge Advisor, and the Virani / Lux family.