On May 6 at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Mo. Plymouth-Canton’s very own Lightning Robotics team brought home the title of “World Champions.”

The road to World Champions was not an easy one; it took months of preparation and effort to make an unbelievable comeback from the last season.

“It took three months of training and six weeks of hard work and dedication where we design, prototype, experiment, fail and do it all over again until we have both a competition robot and a practice robot that we use for further practice and improvements during competition season. In preparing for the competition, we practice and work on making the robot the best it can be before we have to compete,” said Salem sophomore Nolan Adams.

“Our success as a team all comes down to basic team structure and how efficient the student leaders are. Over the summer, Lightning Robotics started a leadership college program that prepared our incoming student leads to learn skills they need to run such a large team,” said Canton junior Caitlin Schwartz.

“Going to worlds isn’t an easy task; last year we didn’t even qualify for states. What we do isn’t easy; it’s stressful and hard, but no matter what, it’s a whole lot of fun. On reveal day we were given a book of rules and a game video, and in six weeks we [had to] build a robot from the ground up, and somewhere in between all the designing and programming you still have to find time for the drivers to practice with the robot,” said Plymouth sophomore Nina Paquette.

The world competition is the grandest competition of the season. It is consists of very intense qualification rounds, nerve wrecking eliminations and a winner takes all final round. “After the qualification matches are played, Saturday morning is when alliance selection happens, where the top eight seated chose who they want on an alliance,” explained Canton junior Vivian Clements. “The alliances were made of three robots and one back up. After that, you have an elimination style format for who wins the division. After we won, we then went to the final field called Einstein. It’s one of the highest fields you can ever compete at. It was a round robin style format where we had to face off every winner of the other divisions. When the final two stand for the most points, they face off in a final match. We won twice, so that means we won Einstein and we’re champions.”

Staying alive in this intense competition took a lot of effort and skill. After not making the finals the year before, the team knew there was work to be done, and work they did.

“I am so proud of our team for the drastic improvements that were made from the 2016 season. The student board and group leads did an amazing job training the rookies as well as creating goals for the robot that had reasonable deadlines,” said Schwartz.

“Going from last year to this year feels amazing. Our team as a whole has improved vastly. Incoming rookies have been incredibly competent and ready to learn, each of our seven subgroups works cohesively and efficiently both on their own and with each other, and our student leaders and mentors have been fantastic in guiding us all through this journey. Our World Championship title shows that our team is able to turn things around quickly and with great success,” said Salem sophomore Brian Derry.

“It is shocking the change we made from last year, and it makes me proud. The attitude that everyone had coming into this season inspired me to give my best every single day. The skills we learn stretch beyond one season,” said Tyler Harris, Plymouth senior.

After celebration festivities and the long trip home, the feeling of becoming the World Champions, and the title itself, still hasn’t settled with some team members.

“I honestly still can’t believe it. It’s cool to have this much recognition. I feel like people know who I am, and I hope they check out what robotics is,” said Clements.

“The experience itself was surreal and emotional for a lot of members, as this was our first time ever winning a world championship. Personally, it drives me to do more for the team next year and continue [the] growth and awareness of STEM field,” said Schwartz.

“Every student on our team, regardless of their age or subgroup, has contributed greatly to our success. We should all be very proud of this win; not many teams can say that they have won the World Championship,” said Derry. “This new title will also help Lightning Robotics as a whole. Even though our team has over 130 students, we aren’t very well-known in our local community, especially in our school district. Interviews like this and the recognition gained across Plymouth and Canton will help spread the message of the FIRST Robotics Programs, and hopefully get other aspiring students in P-CCS involved in robotics.”

With this recent success, the team never forgets about who has helped guide them all this way. “I would like to thank all of our mentors, who volunteer so much of their free time to work with the team and help out. I would also like to thank all of the student leaders on the team, the various volunteers and parents, the volunteers at competitions and the various companies who sponsor the team, such as Bosch. I would like to specifically thank Mr. Jay Obsniuk, who is a teacher at Canton High School, and is the person who founded the team back in 1999 here at the Park, and [also] Joe Jagadics, who is our lead mentor and the one who coaches the drive team during competitions,” said Adams.

After competing against 450 teams in St. Louis, with six different fields, each having around 70 teams on it and facing off against the best six teams within the competition which had almost 40,000 attendees, 1,394 teams from over 39 countries, and 2,400 volunteers operating it all, Lightning robotics proved to themselves and the world that they are a force to be reckoned with.