HURRICANE — Five elementary students from Hurricane recently overcame a financial roadblock as a victory to attend the state competition in robotics on March 4.
Dubbed the Hurricane Knights, the 4th-grade and 5th-grade students competed in the regional tournament in January in their first-ever competition placing fifth.
That qualified them for the state competition at Weber State University in Ogden.
“We did great,” Havoc Allen, a Knights team member said.
Allen was joined by Grant Thomas, Canyon Naccarato, Brigham Brown and Jeffrey Fry at the competition. All gave exclamations of excitement when they received the news of qualifying for the state competition.
The Knights coach, Karen Webb said they found out due to school policy, the district would not sponsor the trip to Ogden. The current policy is any travel more than 150 miles for those under 8th grade is not covered.
“So we had to unaffiliate to go as a city team,” Webb said.
Knights parents worked fast to get fundraising going. With help from a GoFundMe account and social media, they spread the word of the Knights need for $2,000. With less than a week to raise the funds needed, their plan was a success.
The Knights competed amongst 30 teams on March 4, finishing middle of the pack. However, they were the youngest team competing.
“What I learned from state is that we all can be friends,” Fry said. “Even if we win or lose, it is always fun.”
Hurricane Elementary Principal Matthew Lowe explained the rules of the competitions.
The robotics is under the FIRST® LEGO® League, a national competition league that explores Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. According to the international league website, the program helps youth get “fun exciting hands-on learning” and “gain real-world problem-solving experience.”
Lowe said the game in which they competed focuses on energy. All year long the Knights worked on a robot and programmed it to perform tasks.
“They have three rounds and take the highest score,” Webb said.
Besides the three rounds of the competition, the Knights had to make a public presentation on core values, strategy and the robot design to the judges. Webb said a lot of research was involved.
A special tool that was utilized by the Knights robotics were their mentors from Hurricane High School.
The mentors included senior Hannah Martin, juniors Rebekah Vick and Addison Pace, and sophomore Davis Henderson.
“We would come in and help them with their code and design to where they needed it so they could complete their missions,” Pace said.
Each mentor took time throughout the year in helping the Knights plan, design and implement their robot. Utah Tech University students aided too.
“We help them have fun,” Henderson added.
Both their mentors and coach said it was amazing to see how much the Knights have improved throughout the year.
The extra finances raised were put into an account for future Knights competitions. All Knights said they were thankful to their parents and the community who responded with their support.
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