HALE – The Hale Schools robotics team 5547 traveled North to the town of Escanaba to be part of the FIRST Robotics district event held at the Escanaba High School. The tournament was held on Mar 17, 2022 and the team from Hale took 9 students of its 14 member team across the bridge to compete. The Talons as the Hale team is called competed against 37 other school teams from around the state for a shot at top prize at the event. Friday of the two day event found Hale’s robot functioning well, but the wins weren’t coming as fast as the team wanted. Saturday morning was more of the same and the Talons found themselves towards the bottom of the 38 team rankings. Sad faces gathered for lunch to regroup and wait for playoff selections. As a bit of a surprise the Hale team was offered a spot on the number one alliance captain because he liked team 5547’s solid performance and consistency throughout the weekend. So to the playoffs the Talons would go!! From there the group sailed through the playoffs and its 3 team alliance finished in the number one spot. Taking home the illustrious blue banner, trophies and gold medals for the school and its team.
Hale then set its sights on the Traverse City event on April 7th. The Talons made the trip to TC and came out of the box swinging, showing a much better performance on that Friday then they had at the Escanaba meet two weeks before. Saturday saw more wins and team 5547 was made captain of the 7th alliance and picked two teams to compete in the playoffs at Traverse City West High School later that day. While the team knew it was going to be a battle, the goal was to score enough points to qualify for the State championship to be held at Saginaw Valley State University the next weekend. The team from Hale fought hard and went 1-2 in the best of three match up, falling short and going home in the quarterfinal round. Now the team sat waiting to see if the combination of their State ranking points from the two events was enough to take them to the big show at the Ryder Center. After a late night and a group text the top 160 in the State was announced and Hale’s Robotics team was on the list. They were headed to Saginaw on April 13th to compete against the States best robotics programs and see where the cards would fall.
The FIRST Robotics State qualifier is made up of the best robotics teams in the State; they are not grouped by classes or size of school just whether or not they made enough points in their two district qualifying events. So for the Hale team to even make the stage was a great accomplishment in itself. Playing against schools with support form the big three and companies like Boeing, Delphi and the likes, the small group from Northern Michigan did their best to run with the big dogs. The three day event had the Talons showing well on Thursday with a record of 4 wins and 2 losses, but on Friday the gap between team 5547 and the front runners was growing and Hale fought the fight but came up short and saw Friday as its last day of competition. Saturday was the playoffs for the State title and found Hale watching from the sidelines. The Hale Talons did not lament their loss as the season itself was a win. A qualification for States in robotics is a hard thing to get with over 450 teams in the State and team 5547 was able to claim one of those spots. A district level win and a good showing at TC gave the team a feeling of great success. This is Hale’s 8th year in competitive high school robotics and the team’s second invite to the State qualifier, when they made the trip in 2017 as well.
