Welcome to the Firestone Robotics website! We are a group of individuals with a similar mindset; think, create, destroy, and repeat.
We compete in VEX Robotics tournaments all across the state every year and work our hardest to create not only decent robots but also knowledgeable students and leaders of the future.
The club is lead by the club president, Jared Borodkin, and our advisor Dan Spak, as well as the hundreds of helpful parents and volunteers.
We can't wait to compete during this 2018 - 2019 season and hope to see everyone at worlds this year!
A brief history of 7316
HISTORY
MEAGER BEGINNINGS...
2011 - 2012
Firestone Robotics first began in 2012 with only a small group of students operating with little funds, little experience, but big motivation. The group of friends were looking for a way to spend more time outside of school doing what they loved: engineering. These students were from the POE, Principles of Engineering, class in the Project Lead the Way program at Firestone. They had eagerly experimented with a few starter kits in VEX and upon further research, they discovered that VEX ran competitions all across the world.
With little knowledge and experience of VEX, they worked with what they had. The first robot, shown above, was dubbed 'Stringbot'. This robot only had two motors on it's drive train, the lift operating only on the string.
The robot never left the engineering room, as it was not competition ready. The team vowed then and there that they would make a better competition-ready robot the following year.
SACK ATTACK...
2012 - 2013
The following year, many members of the original team had graduated so the remaining team brought on new members. The team that year consisted of: David Cardew, Lilith Freed, Kerry Holmes, Christopher Morris, Alex Horwitz, Jasper Nitzsche, Tyler Stallsmith, Josh Hoffman, and Cecilia Carter.
Working together on their new VEX challenge 'Sack Attack', they tried hard and created their first competition-ready robot. They entered their first year competing modestly, the robot being barely functional and never even making it to the alliance selection. Regardless, the team was iron-willed and determined to be better the next year.
TOSS UP...
2013 - 2014
The game for 2013 - 2014, Toss Up, proved to be the game that Firestone Robotics needed! The club doubled in size, adding two more teams, leading the members from the previous year to divide in order to share the wealth of knowledge, following the team setup below;
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7316A - Kerry Holmes, Chris Morris, Tyler Stallsmith, Jasper Nitzsche, and Erica Kraus.
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7316B - Lilith Freed, Melissa Cardew, Haley Calhoun, and Alex Horowitz.
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7316C - Josh Hoffman, Steven Edwards, Chris Wertenberger, Aaron Bowie, and Abi Orosz.
Team 7316A qualified for states by winning an Excellence Award at a competition in Cleveland. At States they won the Design Award, sending them to Worlds in Anaheim, California.
Before getting onto the plane back home, Mr. Spak, the coach for the 7316 teams since stringbot had been created, approached the team and told them to think about their goals for the next season. On that plane ride back to Ohio, the team ultimately chose to split and help train the next wave of engineers.
SKYRISE...
2014 - 2015
While the Worlds team's plan worked, sending two teams to States, sadly, no teams entered Worlds this year. While we were disappointed to not be going to Worlds, we had achieved the initial goal of sharing knowledge of robot building among club and were excited for the following year.
NOTHING BUT NET...
2015 - 2016
The first Worlds team had graduated, so it was time to put the knowledge they had shared to the test. Luckily, we proved successful! Four out of five robotics teams qualified for states and three teams were chosen for alliance selection. Because of the placement of the brackets, team E eliminated teams C and D and rose to win the State Tournament! At Worlds, they won the Judges award.
STARSTRUCK...
2016 - 2017
Just as it had been for the last few years, club grew again. Another team was added, team 7316F, which would come to be our first all-girl robotics team. By the end of our season, we had qualified all six teams to States and we all fought well, but unfortunately, nobody continued from there.
IN THE ZONE...
2017 - 2018
In the 2017-2018 season, Firestone Robotics Club took up a new responsibility that we had never done before, we tried mentoring a team from the neighboring middle school. The Litchfield LARgos would come in every club meeting and work on their robot, us helping them with any issues they may have had. This plan worked well and we not only watched them go to Worlds, but we joined them! To be specific, two teams joined them!
Teams D and F both went to Worlds off of skills from the States competition and fought well there, though no teams won an award at Worlds.
TURNING POINT...
2018-2019
In the 2018-2019 season, the former Litchfield LARgos joined club and integrated into existing teams. All six teams qualified for States, where team E defeated team A in the quaterfinals for a Worlds spot, team F won the Innovate award, and team B won the design award, sending three of Firestone's 6 teams to Worlds!
At the first Worlds that Firestone has ever been to back-to-back years, teams E and F won 5 of their matches - a new Firestone record - and team B won the Technology Division Design Award, which is the second award given to a Firestone team at Worlds. The future looks brighter than ever before!
TOWER TAKEOVER...
2019-2020
During Tower Takeover, the Firestone Robotics Club continued to make history. Following their historic season, Team 7316B kept at it and won the Design Award at Kalahari for the second year in a row, and followed it up by winning the same award at Night at the Museum. The other 5 teams also performed well, with Team 7316F winning the first Excellence Award of the season and multiple finals appearances, Team 7316E winning two Excellence Awards and having multiple finals appearances as well, Team 7316D being the only FHS Team to win the finals, and Team 7316A finishing 1st overall at an event. The highlight of the year, however, was when Team 7316X became the first team from Firestone to double-qualify for Worlds by winning a Tournament Semifinalist and the Design Award at States!
Coming soon...
CHANGE UP...
2020-2021
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