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Annandale students demonstrate competition robot, report regional and state awards
Summary
District robotics team demonstrated its 2025 competition robot, described season results at Rocket City and Granite City regionals and the state tournament, and listed awards including the Rising All Star and Dunwoody College engineering award.
Members of the ANNANDALE PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT robotics team demonstrated their 2025 competition robot, described regional results and a state appearance, and accepted district praise for team accomplishments and awards.
Dickinson, the team’s coach, described the robot—named Hard Times—and said the team tailored design choices to maximize scoring efficiency within their resources. “This robot was designed initially to do only parts of what the overall game was,” Dickinson said, adding the team focused on placing multiple lower-valued pieces instead of a single higher-valued action because of time and design constraints.
Student driver Elliot summarized the season: the team competed at the Rocket City Regional in Alabama, where it qualified eighth and captained alliance No. 6, and at Granite City Regional in Saint Cloud, where the team captained alliance No. 3 and finished near the top in qualifications. The team also attended the state tournament and won the Dunwoody College Outstanding Engineering and Design Award; the coach was named Section 6 coach of the year by peers. At Granite City the team also received the Rising All Star award, given to a developing team that overcame turnover and rebuilt key skills.
Team members, students and board members described the program’s educational benefits beyond mechanics: students work on fundraising, outreach, marketing, graphic design, wiring and machining. The board noted roughly $8,500 in materials were invested in the current robot. Dickinson and students explained operational details: the robot’s maximum competition-weight rules allowed a 115-pound robot plus bumpers up to a combined 135-pound limit; the team weighed 114.9 pounds and used bumpers totaling 20.1 pounds to reach the 135-pound allowance to perform endgame tasks.
Students explained match strategy and alliance play: three robots form an alliance in each match, and alliances coordinate offense and defense; qualification match scheduling yields ranks that let top teams become alliance captains in elimination rounds.
Board members and the district praised the students’ work and coaching staff and thanked them for the demonstration. The robotics presentation took place during agenda item 6b.
