George Mason High School’s robotics team won the gold medal at its second regional competition at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond.
The victory comes just weeks after making the first-place alliance as a top winner at the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition Virginia Regional last month, where the team also took home its second “Gracious Professional” award from VCU. Its first Gracious Professional trophy of the season was awarded by FIRST at the Washington, D.C. regional. There, team 1418, coined “Vae Victus,” led the second-place alliance, catapulting them to the state regional.
Over 100 teams competed at the most recent competition, which took place the weekend before Mason’s spring break last week. Participating teams’ robots went head to head in a game of soccer, which is played by various three-team alliances.
Winning goals were scored by Mason seniors Pachu Chembukave, Johanna Ballou, Mathew Rollo and David Kutchma thanks to the winch system on their robot.
The Mason robotics team includes eighth graders Linda Lay and Adam Martin; Freshmen Callum Bartlett, Fernando Angulo, Christopher Cooper; sophomores Andrew Emmons, Andrew Finein, Christina Park, Vlad Utchin, David Sheffler and Worachet Sakprayoonpong; juniors Kaloyan Stankov, Elizabeth Womack, Matthew Duntz, Charles DeLeo and Chris Wakeley; and seniors Parameswar Chembukave, Matthew Rollo, Johanna Ballou and William Perkins. The students’ sponsor is John Ballou, a fine and performing arts teacher at GMHS.
