Media Release

Neenah: Recently, two teams from the St. Mary Central High School VEX Robotics program traveled to Louisville, Kentucky for the 2015 VEX Robotics World Championship. The teams performed very well among the nearly 450 teams from around the world who participated in the competition.

Team 1200F— Z-Ballers, whose members are Nathan Berg, Maggie Braatz, Colin Higgins, Noah Johnson, and Erik Meier, was in a final alliance for the science division championship, but was eliminated in the third match of the final round. They placed second in the division finals and received a trophy.

Team 1200 C–Technical Breakdown’s members are Matthew Glen, Spencer Juchniewich, Russell Stark, Kyle VandeVenter and Caileen Fahrenkrug (who was not able to attend this competition). Technical Breakdown went 9-and-1 in the qualifying rounds, but were eliminated in the math division semi-final. The team was awarded the AMAZE Award for the most amazing performing robot design and also finished in 10th place in the world for the Robot Skills portion of the competition!

The SMCS VEX teams will now disassemble their robots and begin planning for next year’s challenge, “Nothing but Net.” That season’s competition will require alliance teams to compete in matches including a fifteen-second autonomous period followed by one minute and forty-five seconds of driver-controlled play. The high school expects to field at least nine teams averaging five students each in the 2015-16 school year.

Photo: Team 1200C—Technical Breakdown, winners of the AMAZE Award L to R: Spencer Juchniewich, Matthew Glen, Russell Stark, Kyle VandeVenter (not pictured: Caileen Fahrenkrug)

Photo: Team 1200F—Z-Ballers L to R: Noah Johnson, Maggie Braatz, Nicholas Berg, Erik Meier, Colin Higgins

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