It’s been two years since Clarkston Team RUSH Robotics was at Kettering University.
It was March 2020 and they won the FIRST in Michigan Kettering District No. 1 for back-to-back wins after winning in 2019.
The team headed back to Clarkston ready for an amazing season. But…the season didn’t finish due to COVID-19.
“From one night driving the robot on the practice field at CHS, to the next day being told they couldn’t go back to the school at all for over six months,” said Coach Kyle Hughes. “It was very difficult for them, especially the seniors who had hoped for an outstanding season.”
Fast forward to this past weekend and Team RUSH was back at Kettering University in Flint against for the FIRST in Michigan Kettering District No. 1 where they won the tournament – again.
RUSH competed to earn the first seed position, which put them in a great position to pick their partners, 5460 – Strike Zone from Lapeer and 5538 – Vikingbots from Saginaw.
During the tournament Strike Zone demonstrated they were an amazing offensive scorer able to shoot from anyone on the field with Vikingbots as a tough defense robot. The alliance proved to be very tough to beat.
As the tournament progressed, Team RUSH and their alliance reached three new world records for scores -107, 117 and 118.

They swept the tournament with straight wins! With a final record of 16-1-1, Team RUSH won the Kettering tournament. RUSH also earned 73 points towards the State Championships qualification.
RUSH was also honored with the Autonomous Award, sponsored by Ford. The robot has many autonomous features (preprogrammed features making it easier for the drivers to manipulate the robot), including their five ball autonomous feature at the beginning of the game.
“This has been an amazing experience,” said Hughes. “We have only five students on the team who have gone through an entire season, with ten kids who were at Kettering 2020, and 15 students who experienced their very first official tournament this weekend. They did amazing.”
She added the students were spot on for scouting data.
“It allowed us to make good decisions going into the playoffs,” Hughes said. “The students who worked with the judges were eloquent in their descriptions of what we have done over the past two years as well as explaining the robot and the autonomous features, which led us to the award. We have a Robot Resources crew too, which went around the pits helping teams out who needed help. The resources group received MANY compliments this weekend about how much they helped out and a team award. Lastly, the drive team is new this year and held their own. In fact, they drove as experienced drivers. We have a new swerve drivetrain which is much different than the tank drivetrain we have used for 24 years. Going into the finals, there had been very little defense.
“Kudos to the Goodrich Martians, Team 494, for their brilliant strategy to try to stop us. Not only did they try to stop both of our scoring bots, they really created a super exciting competition. It looked more like battle bots than FIRST robotics! Our drivers kept their cool, and were so focused that going into the last match of the tournament, one of them asked, ‘how long until the finals.’ I was so impressed with the intensity of our focus that he didn’t know we were already there.”
The next tournament is in Pittsburgh, PA, March 18-20 and will broadcasted on Twitch. More information can also be found on www.teamrush27.net.