February 14, 2020

Eastern Carver County Schools Robotics Team Makes it to State for the 2nd Year and advances to World Competition

St. PAUL, MN – The top 48 of 205 Minnesota High Tech Kids FIRST Tech Challenge robotics teams competed on February 7-8 in the Minnesota High Tech Kids FIRST Tech Challenge Stratasys State Championship held at Washington Technology Magnet School. Nine of those teams now have the opportunity to participate in the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship, to be held April 29-May 2, 2020 at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan.

“Wrench Dressing”, Minnesota FTC Team #9415 represented Eastern Carver County Schools at the state tournament, and is one of the 9 Minnesota teams advancing to the World Championship.

“Wrench Dressing” is excited to represent our community at the World Championship, but FTC is about more than just success on the competition field, “What I love about this program is that it teaches us gracious professionalism not only with our own team, but other teams competing in the tournaments with us.   Gracious Professionalism is a part of everything we do with our FTC season, it encourages high-quality work but also respect & the value of others.” Said Josh Bodmer, team representative.

Team Members Include:

Joshua Bodmer – Senior, Chanhassen HS

CJ Newhouse – Senior, Chanhassen HS

Kaleb Wirtzfield – Senior, Chanhassen HS

Benjamin Chua – Senior, Chanhassen HS

Jake Norby – Senior, Chanhassen HS

Christopher Patz – Sophomore, Chanhassen HS

Delia Derner – Freshman, Chaska HS

Andrew Chua – Sophomore, Chanhassen HS

Cody Boie – Sophomore, Chanhassen HS

Tommy Good – Senior, Chanhassen HS

Additional advancing teams include:

Team 9972 Iron Gears from Maple Grove

Team 3763 Piece of Cake from Edina

Team 10273 Cat in the Hat Comes Back from Otsego

Team 12528 NextGen from Apple Valley

Team 10272 Titanium Allies from Shoreview

Team 13247 RPM Robotics from Woodbury

Team 11190 Mecha Dojo Robotics from Eden Prairie

Team 9205 Iron Maidens from Apple Valley

FIRST Tech Challenge is a widely accessible international robotics program for students’ ages 12-18 created to get young people excited about science and technology and teach them valuable career and life skills. Students develop STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills and practice engineering principles, while realizing the value of hard work, innovation, and working as a team.