By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Staff Writer 
HURST, TEXAS — Clarkston High School Team RUSH finished as runner up in the Recon, Rescue and Firefighting Challenge during the Bell Advanced Vertical Robotics World Championship, Dec. 1-2.
Team RUSH also received the award for Best Overall Design.
“It was amazing,” said Coach Kyle Hughes. “Team RUSH went down to Texas for the second year in a row. They really did a phenomenal job. It’s hard to practice here because we don’t have a normal field. When we go down there it’s like the first time. They had two weekends they could actually practice on an actual field. It would be like a football team practicing in the street then say play on this giant field with lines. They did all they could to mimic what the field would look like and how it would feel flying. They did a marvelous job.”
Hughes explained this year the game was a little different from last year but it stayed with the firefighter theme.
“This year the large drone had to pick up three little spheros, like firefighters,” she said.
Then, the students had to find out which building had the hot spot (the fire) by using a laser. The spheros would be dropped off on the top of the building to help get people out of the building.
“Underneath you had a rover that was going wherever the spheros were knocking the ping pong balls off,” Hughes said. “They would drop it down into a bucket on top of their robot. It was a lot more interactive. The drones were picking up little sphero robots, dropping them off on buildings. Then, those drones had jobs to do and the rover on the bottom was catching everybody. They really had to talk to each other and communicate. The whole goal is to put out fires in the city.
“The drone would have to pick up water which was blue balls then it would have to come up and drop them off into the buildings. It gave the kids a chance to think through how drones and helicopters drop water on fires and have to do the rescue stuff. It is such a real world application.”
Team RUSH finished in second place to the team they had beat last year for the championship win by one point.
“They went back home, reorganized and said we will never be beat by one point again,” Hughes shared. “They beat us by over 200 points. They beat everybody. Once they take the lead it’s hard to come back. I said you came back with vengeance. They said no, we came back inspired. They were inspired to be top notch and they had the highest score ever. We were very honored to have lost to them because they were so amazing. Our kids did not feel any bad feelings coming back because they did the best they could. Everyone participated. Everyone scored points. They did an amazing job in their presentation. It was just really good all the way around.”
Team RUSH qualified by winning the Bell AVR Grandville Qualifier, Nov. 11. They competed in four tough matches, had an event high score and second highest presentation score.
“We had not planned to go to worlds and then we had three weeks to raise money to get down there,” Hughes said, adding the students were up to the challenge.
“The kids came back they said yes we want to go. They made the commitment to have the grades to go because they would miss school and they would fundraise. They did it. They reached out and got new sponsors. They got all sorts of people who said this is amazing let me help. That was a huge hurdle for us. It was also a hurdle because it was over Thanksgiving and the parade was coming up. Our timing couldn’t have been any worse, but they hung in there and never gave up. That’s something I love about this team and the attitude of the students. They just never give up.”
Team RUSH shares a special thanks to: David W. Elliot Memorial Foundation, NDIA Michigan, Atom Tech, Faith Connector, Crane Technologies and Flip for donating over $500.
“We can not thank our sponsors enough,” said Hughes. “If it hadn’t been for all of them we would have had to pass on this opportunity.”
Team RUSH now prepares for the FIRST Robotics season which kicks off January 6.
Hughes shared Bell AVR is a micro version of what they do in robotics. The team still needs to communicate, document and practice.
“They had to do a checklist to know what is going on,” she added. “Prechecks before they went out to play. They did post checks – what went well, what went wrong so they could make corrections. It was a great opportunities for these nine kids and three adults to go through and get primed and ready for the season.”
The team members and mentors are: Finn Berard, Daniel Bradstreet, Charlie DeKoninck, Sam DeKoninck, AJ Edwards, Kierston Furness, Charles Goodrich, Luke Jeung, Devan Wcisel,
Andrew Luchenbach, Marco Berard and Hughes.