Vo-tech students win honors at competition
Fayette County Area Vocational-Technical School won King of the Ring and Coolest Bot and placed fifth in overall competition at the recent Southwestern Pennsylvania BattleBots IQ competition at Century III Mall. “I couldn’t have been prouder of the kids,’ said instructor Tom DeGusipe, who advised the team, known as the Tech Destroyers, along with instructors Lawrence “Gus’ Rossi and Steve Patchan. “They were a great bunch of kids. They showed great sportsmanship and they were resilient.’
Carmen Grosse of Advanced Manufacturing Career Collaborative reported that 16 schools participated in the BattleBots competition Saturday.
Plum High School took first place while Eastern Westmoreland Career and Technology Center in Latrobe came in second place. Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Pittsburgh won Best Engineering Documentation. Derry Area High School received the honor for Best Sportsmanship.
Fayette AVTS’s Project X robot was named Coolest Bot as voted on by the students. Grosse said 185 students participated in the competition. In addition, Fayette AVTS, located in Georges Township, won King of the Ring in a rumble held just before the final round of competitions.
DeGusipe reported the Fayette students took fifth place in the overall competition.
“We won the first and second rounds, and we lost the third round,’ he said.
But that put them in the King of the Ring competition, which DeGusipe explained, “They put all the bots except first and second place in the ring and let them battle it and the last standing was King of the Ring.’
Grosse noted the students worked hard and when the robots suffered damage, they would troubleshoot to make repairs and send them into the ring again.
She said, “The kids seem to have gotten a lot out of it. It was fun to see their enthusiasm.’
Grosse said that photos of the competition would be posted on the Web site by the end of the week on the Web site www.battlebotsiqpa.org.