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Meet Willie–he’s the robot built by the Calumet robotics team and they will be competing for the World Championship.
CopperBots Team 2586 are one of only three Upper Peninsula teams heading to the FIRST Robotics Competition in St. Louis next week and the only one from the Copper Country.
This will be the first time Calumet has ever competed in the finals–a tribute not only to Willie, but to the team behind him.
Robot Operator and Mechanical & Pneumatics Specialist Garrick Ensminger said, “As soon as build season started, we started getting our design all solidified right away. We built the robot right on time and even had time to spare to test it and everything.”
This year, the teams are battling it out in a game called FIRST Stronghold, a medieval-themed game where the robots defend their fortress while scoring goals against the opposing alliance.
Willie has performed well, despite being made entirely from repurposed material.
Robot Electrical, Mechanical & Pneumatics Specialist Kai Wagner said, “It was mostly materials that we could scrounge up from our bus garage and we recycled metal from a metal shop, as well as previous metal and technology from previous years.”
The Copperbots will be competing against roughly 600 other teams so the challenge may be difficult, but they have just one goal in mind…
Wagner said, “We just want to run that robot until it can’t run anymore for its last run. Next year, we’ll build a new one.”
