Centre County robotics team gets world recognition

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – A big weekend in Detroit, with many local school districts traveling to the Motor City to compete.

More than 15,000 students from around the world went head-to-head with robots, built from scratch. A team in State College was part of the winning group that brought home the title.

The Centre County team was part of the winning alliance to win the FIRST Robotics world championship.

The Centre County 4-H Robotics Team won along with Stryke Force from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Team Rush from Clarkston, Michigan, and Lake Effect Robotics from Kingston, Ontario. The team just got back in town, and 6 News got a chance to talk to them.

The team is still in shock. Their mentors say this is the highest recognition a team in Pennsylvania has received.

"The students have been fantastic, obviously with they're world champions, but it's really impressive seeing the growth over the course of a season," robotics team mentor Adam Last said.

From working in a small garage -- to having their own work space.

The 4-H Robotics Team was able to successfully build a robot -- that helped win a bid to the world championship.

"It was pretty spectacular to have that opportunity to show what we had built and compete with it," Centre County robotics team member Tom Sower said.

The team competed against over 400 teams from 22 states and seven countries. They worked hard over the last two months to perform after winning a bid in a Pittsburgh Regional Competition.

"We put a lot of work into this, we put many, many hours a week," Centre County robotics team member Lachlan Sneff said.

The team has only been around for seven years -- one student says he never imagined them making it to the worldsworld competition.

"We weren't even considering that we would, ever ... ever win the world's competition, but it happened the next year," Sneff said.

The work doesn't end here -- the team has plans for more competitions.

"Next we actually have some more stuff related to first coming up because we won worlds,” Centre County robotics team member Mary Davis said. “We get the chance to maybe go compete in some other offseason events in places like Indiana and that's going to be cool."

The robotics team says it thanks the community for all its support, saying they wouldn't be where they are today without the help.

The Robotic Doges from Hollsopple, Somerset County, also competed. They were in the tech challenge competition and made it to the final round.

Congrats to both of our local teams.

The Centre County team is opening its doors to anyone interested in participating with the team, and adults who would like to help mentor. You can contact them through their Facebook page wwww.facebook.com/cc4hr/.

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