The Niles North Robotics team competed at State on March 10 and returned with their hands full of success as they now prepare to compete in the World Championships in April. 

Niles North had five teams compete at State this year and two teams qualified for World championships. Juniors Isaiah Stumme, Tom James, Jonathan Avram, and Ryan Nitoi, who are in group 333G, shared more about their season and how they got prepared for State. 

“Our whole robotics season went okay,” junior and member of team 333G Jake Zara said. “We won one tournament with our other team 333R but we didn’t do very well in any of the other tournaments. The only tournament we did well in was the one that we won. It was overall ok but we definitely wish we could have gone to more tournaments because there weren’t that many this year. But other than that our robot really didn’t change that much throughout the year. It was kind of the same since the beginning.”

The season was a rollercoaster for everyone. Succeeding but sometimes not having the outcome they wanted was definitely a part of their journey and that was what Mr. Powell was looking for. 

“I think the takeaway is just being able to see our students being able to compete at the State level with all the work that they’ve put in this year,” Director of Engineering, Computer Science and Business said. “Being able to see the success seeing the work that they’ve done. Watching them grow, watching them come up with ideas. Sometimes the ideas are good ones, sometimes they’re not good ones having to go back to the drawing board. All the time and effort that they put into their robot. Watching all those ideas come out when they’re competing is just great to see.”

Worlds competition will take place on April 25 – May 4 in Dallas, TX. Team 333G will be joined by Team 333R, sophomore Hayden Kohm and seniors Andrew Shlikhtau, Rudy Espinoza and Alex Seitz.