Robotics Team Win Is Cinderella Story

DAYTON - For the first time last weekend, Dayton High School teacher Steve McLean took four of his students to a regional robotics competition and came home with a trophy.

"It's something like I've never seen before in my life," McLean said.

McLean and his students, Alex Eaton, Demitri Tziouvaras, Lincoln Riley and James Costello, traveled to Central Washington University with their robot last weekend to go up against teams from Boise, California and even Seattle. Local cities Rosalia and Prosser had teams at the competition as well.

"We were just four country kids and (had) no help," McLean said with a chuckle.

This was the first year a robotics team had ever been put together at the school, McLean said. Waitsburg has a team and its coach talked McLean into it. He applied for a couple of grants, and received about $9,000 to help Dayton build its robot. On Jan. 7, he picked up the parts his team needed and the group had six weeks to build the robot. After those six weeks, the robot was sealed in a bag.

McLean said he wasn't really happy with the robot they took to the competition. The robots were supposed to be built to pick up basketballs and shoot them on a built court. He said the Dayton robot wasn't great at shooting the basketball, but it had some characteristics that allowed the team to pick up extra points in other areas of the competition.

The Dayton robot was able to cross over bridges and balance on a teeter-totter and that gave them bonus points that pushed them to the top of the competition.

The seeding for the competition took about 1.5 days, McLean said. The elimination tournament followed.

The Dayton team was allowed to add to its robot to help it shoot better. With all their bonus points and the improvements, Dayton was asked to form an alliance with teams from Aviation High School in Seattle and the Boise Independent School District.

Being chosen as part of this alliance was the best thing that happened to Dayton because the alliance ended up winning the whole competition, McLean said. Aviation came out as no. 1, Boise as no. 2 and Dayton as no. 3.

After the weekend's competition, McLean said he was still floating on air. He said the competition wasn't stressful, but fun and full of great sportsmanship.

"The whole idea is to have fun," he said. "The help by competing team members is nothing like I've ever seen in my life."

Principal Andy Maheras was just as shocked as McLean with the team's win.

"(I'm) very much surprised," Maheras said. "It was the first time that we attended and we came away with the trophy. The students who attended the competition were very excited about their win and the experience."

And with the win, Dayton gets the chance to attend the national robotics competition in St. Louis, Mo., from April 25 through April 28. McLean had to find $5,000 by Tues- day at noon and then $12,000 more before the competition.

He said he was feeling a bit flustered trying to find the money to send the team, but he was optimistic he knew he could find some help.

"Certainly we get excited anytime one or more of our students get an opportunity to broaden their learning opportunities by traveling outside of our community," said Superintendent Doug Johnson. "From my conversation with Mr. McLean last week, I know he and the students were just hoping to get the robot working. To go from that to winning the competition is great. We know the students and Mr. McLean will represent Dayton well."

To donate to the trip, contact McLean at 509-382-2757 or stevem@daytonsd.org.