Iron Chargers have best year as a team

The Grygla Iron Chargers attended the MN State VEX Robotics Tournament in St. Cloud, MN, last weekend. Even though they didn’t qualify for the World Champions like they have the last four years, advisor Isaac Kvasager says it was the best year yet. “This was arguably our best year as a team in terms of what we were able to build and the high level of programming we accomplished,” he commented.

There are 230 teams in the state, so making it to the state semi-finals in St. Cloud was a great achievement for the team. Kvasager pointed out that all teams making it to the finals get an invite to the World Champions; in the semi-finals, team 4149G was just one win short of a world’s trip.

However, the Iron Chargers have qualified for the US Open, which will be held in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on April 6th-8th. They plan to start fundraising for that upcoming competition.

Congratulations goes out to the group of students on their success. (Team 4149G: Lucian Tinnes, Hudson McMillin, Elise Monson and Julianne Nordby, and Team 4149C: Trystan Jelle, Jake Ahlbeck, Abby Kiesow and Chris Luttrell.)

River’s Edge Convention Center

Updates were provided on the Iron Charger’s Facebook page, which followed their weekend at the River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud. It was fun for parents, friends and fans to follow along with the team’s matches. The updates, posted by the team, are being provided below for your reading pleasure. 

Friday night, February 3: 4149C and 4149G have two matches each. Both teams won their first matches. C team went against their partners last year and won the championship by 1 point! The C team also got 16 points in the one-minute programming challenge. That is the highest score from any team in MN throughout the whole season. Congrats to Abby Kiesow, the team’s programmer!

The night wrapped with both teams going 2-0 for the day.

4149C: 2-0 in qualifications. 41 pts in “Skills” (25 in driver, 16 in programming). This is the highest at the state event so far. Most likely other teams will get higher or very close, so we are working to improve this score.

4149G: 2-0 in qualifications. 16 pts in “Skills” (15 in driver, 1 in programming). Both teams already had interviews with judges, which is the screening process for award; both teams seem very happy with their presentations to the judges.

All in all, this is easily the most competitive state competition yet, but we are off to a solid start. We are going to spend a bit of our night going over the robots and modifying some code...very proud of the team. The fact they never stop working to make the robots better is why they have so much success.

Saturday, February 4: Saturday brought each Grygla team 5 matches. C team went 4-0. G team went 3-1. After qualifications, team 4149C is ranked 5th and 4149G is ranked 16th.

Very good considering there are 61 teams here. Only 24 of the 61 teams even make it into the finals so both teams did awesome!

The brackets worked in such a way that our teams have to go head to head in the quarter finals. The G team’s alliance won the first of three! The G team alliance knocked out the C team alliance! Onto the semi-finals for G team!

C team just won the CREATE award! The judges look to see that the robot is well-crafted, has a unique design solution and demonstrates creative thinking. To win this award, the team has to have demonstrated a highly creative engineering design process and methodology. They also have to display ambition and creative teamwork and well as a quality interview with the judges.

Update: The G team lost their first semi-finals match, won their second, and lost the tie breaker. They were one win away from making it to world’s. Good job, G team! Very proud of the whole team! Congrats to all the teams around MN who have stepped up their programs and have done so well this year.

We’re looking forward to experiencing a new venue in Iowa in early April.