By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Staff Writer
The Clarkston High School Team RUSH 27 Robotics team is heading to the state championship after qualifying in the FIRST in Michigan (FIM) District West Michigan last weekend in Allendale.
They won the tournament in the third match of the finals with Team 3357 Comets from Grand Rapids and Team 4855 Ramegeddon from South Haven. The alliance won the first match in the finals with 148. The competing alliance won the second match, also with a 148.

“As far as the competition goes, we won a few and lost a few. Each time we lost, we learned something new,” said Coach Kyle Hughes. “I do believe that helped us get to the finals and win it. The Goodrich teams 494 and 70 and Team 6094 Manic Mechanics (Montague), who we competed against, were really good. They are strong, competitive and smart. I’m not sure we had much more to give by the end of the tournament. We had one more thing to try in the last match, and it worked. I was so happy to see the final score.”
With the win, it puts Team RUSH with an overall record 36-17-1 and ranked 16th in the state out of 480 teams. They went in Rank 5 with a record of 15-3-0.
Hughes shared the last time the team competed in the tournament was 12 years ago – which they won and went in Rank 4 with a record of 14-5-0.
“It seems as if we did essentially the same thing,” Hughes said. “Everyone on the west side of the state was more than nice. They were complementary to our team with great discussions about how wonderful the Clarkston kids were. This weekend felt great. It was a wonderful way to practice and get ready for the Michigan State Championships.”
Team RUSH 27 also won the Excellence in Engineering Award. The judges said: “The Excellence in Engineering Award celebrates the team that demonstrates a professional approach to the design process, and whose design is elegant and advantageous on the field of play. This team engineered a solid ‘picker upper’ and ‘dropper off-er.’ With awesome parts to keep it together – they really showed us the magic. Congratulations, Team RUSH.”
They also received team awards from other teams, including the “Best Pit” Award, and the “Road Runner Award” to the team with the fastest robot doing laps around everyone from the Hybrid Hornets Team 5150.
To round out the weekend, both Luke Jeung and Charlie DeKoninck were nominated for the Dean’s list award.
“While they didn’t make it to the next round, they are our exemplary students on the team,” Hughes said.
She added going into the tournament the team was really tired as they were coming off of back to back tournaments.
“They dug down deep and came through with flying colors,” Hughes said. “The weekend was tough. We had to work for every point in each match. Our chassis driver was not feeling well. We made accommodations to help him out and to make sure we could go match to match. We had a few technical issues, but our Pit Crew fixed all the problems quickly. The scouting team gave us amazing data to use, and the drive team hung on throughout the entire weekend. It was a total team effort and a great team win.”
Team RUSH opened the season at the FIM District Milford tournament, March 2-4, taking third place.
They competed in the Central Illinois Regional, March 15-18, and finished in second place.
“We are hungry for the state championships now,” said Hughes. “We hope to see Clarkston residents come to Saginaw Valley State University for the championships. It is free.”
The state championship is held Thursday, April 6 through Saturday, April 8.
For more information on Team RUSH, go to www.teamrush27.net, https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/27.

  Robotics, Team RUSH 27