Robotics Teams Advance to States, Earn Awards at Regional Competitions

The Lafayette High Kaons, Marquette High Baryons and three community robotics teams containing Rockwood students -- Force Green, Verge and X Bots -- advanced to the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Missouri Kansas Championship due to their performance at the St. Louis Mid-League Tournament, which was held Feb. 1 at Lafayette -- and the Missouri Kansas East Super Qualifier, which was held Feb. 15 at Oakville High.

In addition, the Marquette Luxons and a community team containing Rockwood students -- Brute Force -- earned awards at the Super Qualifier. Three teams qualified for the Missouri Kansas Championship at the Mid-League Tournament, with others advancing to the Super Qualifier for another chance at states.

Seven Rockwood students -- Bhagya Avula, Daniel Carrillo Lopez, Vivek Maddineni, Alifiya Shakeel and Pranav Visveswaran of Lafayette and Shweta Annadorai and Sneha Deo of Marquette -- also earned Dean's List Semifinalist recognition for being exemplary student leaders and ambassadors for STEM and FIRST.

The Kaons, Baryons, X Bots, Force Green and Verge will compete at the Missouri Kansas Championship on Saturday, March 8, at Missouri S&T in Rolla, hoping to qualify for the FIRST World Championship, which will be held April 16-19 in Houston, Texas.

In addition, at the middle school level, the Crestview Middle Robotic Rapper$ and two community teams containing Rockwood students -- High Definition and Team Edge -- earned awards at the FIRST Lego League (FLL) Missouri Regional Championship, held at Francis Howell High on Feb. 22.

The Robotic Rapper$ (the Western Edge Open, to be held May 30-June 1 in Long Beach, California) and High Definition (the Florida Sunshine Invitational, held June 24-28 in Daytona Beach, Florida) also qualified for national events. 

Congratulations to these outstanding Rockwood robotics teams and students!

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FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC)

X Bots

Awards: Inspire Award, Winning Alliance – 1st Team Selected at STL Mid League Tournament (advanced to Missouri Kansas Championship)

Rockwood Team Members (Lafayette High, unless noted): Swetha Annadorai (Marquette High), Vivienne Flory, Avani Joshi, Ahnaf Rahman, Ankita Ramachandran, Isha Rangineni, Vishi Rangineni, Abhinav Rao, Aditi Roy, Suchir Ryali, Alifiya Shakeel, Aditi Sriram (Marquette), Aaric Taneja (Crestview Middle), Amyra Taneja and Connor Wood (Rockwood Valley Middle)

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Force Green

Awards: Inspire Award 2nd Place at STL Mid League Tournament (advanced to Missouri Kansas Championship)

Rockwood Team Members (Marquette, unless noted): Nitya Bollam, Daniel Carrillo Lopez (Lafayette), Ayden Church, Satvik Das (Crestview), Sneha Deo, Akshaj Kommepalli, Tejus Krishnan (Rockwood Summit High), Ryan Palmquist (Rockwood Valley) and Anshu Rajoli

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Verge

Awards: Inspire Award 3rd Place, Winning Alliance – Captain at STL Mid League Tournament (advanced to Missouri Kansas Championship)

Rockwood Team Members (Lafayette, unless noted): Tejas Arun (Marquette), Abhi Boga, Vedu Chimakurthy, Giancarlo Fernandez, Rohan Gopalan, Vedha Inampudi, Pardhu Konakandla, Vivek Maddineni, Hritika Malugu, Logan Martin, Sarayu Nemmadi (Marquette), Ahan Singh and Arvind Sunilkumar

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Lafayette Kaons

Awards: Inspire Award at Missouri Kansas East Super Qualifier (advanced to Missouri Kansas Championship); Finalist Alliance – 1st Team Selected and Innovate Award at STL Mid League Tournament

Team Members: Bhagya Avula, Alex Cannon, Evie Davis, Yaseen Fekry, Logan Green, Pedro Hamamoto, Malak Kamil Qastoma, Audrey Keller, Zoe Lampman, Jacob Langdon, Tyler Nelson and Akil Rajan (Coaches: Shannon Campbell and Frank Consolino)

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Marquette Baryons

Awards: Inspire Award 2nd Place, Finalist Alliance – Captain at Missouri Kansas East Super Qualifier (advanced to Missouri Kansas Championship); Think Award 2nd Place at STL Mid League Tournament

Team Members: Varshini Appan Premkumar, Max Barr, Cooper Blake, Sai Abijay Ganeshkumar, Apurva Ganti, Ridhima Khullar, Ashley Law, Amanda Moi, Abhijith Nair, Mihir Patel, Atharva Shinde, Sowmyan Sridhar Kumuthapriya, Sohum Tokekar, Zixu Wu and Brendan Yn

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Marquette Luxons

Awards: Motivate Award at Missouri Kansas East Super Qualifier and STL Mid League Tournament

Team Members: Srihan Dande, Teju Gottipati, Shreyas Iyer, Vidyuth Kamesh, Sri Vaishnavi Krishnan, Sresht Matolli, Caleb Monzyk, Anish Pasupuleti, Vismay Prakash, Ishita Shah, Aryan Valsa Pradeep and Lucas Zhang

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Brute Force

Awards: Design Award at Missouri Kansas East Super Qualifier; Control Award at STL Mid League Tournament

Rockwood Team Members (Lafayette, unless noted): Pratik Bhattiprolu (Marquette), Om Garine (Selvidge Middle), Saideep Reddy Kondamadugula (Selvidge), Rishi Madhavan, Aradhya Malik, Tarun Ravikumar, Pranav Visveswaran and Vignesshwar Viswanathan

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Dean's List Semifinalists

• Shweta Annadorai (Marquette), X Bots
• Bhagya Avula, Lafayette Kaons
• Daniel Carrillo Lopez (Lafayette), Force Green
• Sneha Deo (Marquette), Force Green
• Vivek Maddineni (Lafayette), Verge
• Alifiya Shakeel (Lafayette), X Bots
• Pranav Visveswaran (Lafayette), Brute Force

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FIRST Lego League (FLL)

High Definition

Awards: Champions Award 2nd Place at Missouri Regional Championship; qualified for Florida Sunshine Invitational

Rockwood Team Members: Kabir Bhushan (Crestview), Vivaan Chechani (Wildwood Middle), Shreyansh Reddy Guduru, Rudhvi Jetta, Disha Madupalli, Sribalaji Rajamadasamy (all of Crestview), Rajan Sankarasubramanian (Selvidge) and Nikilesh Samuthiravel Muthukumar (Crestview)

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Crestview Robotic Rapper$

Awards: Champions Award 4th Place at Missouri Regional Championship; qualified for Western Edge Invitational

Team Members: Bhoopesh Dhanasekaran, Akhil Ghanta, Varun Kamesh, Krithyaa Karunakaran, Yuvan Kothakota, Preston Nunez, Miles Rashman, Deeya Soneta and Sush Vanka

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Team Edge

Awards: Core Values Award 1st Place at Missouri Regional Championship

Rockwood Team Members: Lasya Doddapaneni (Selvidge), Matteo Fernandez (Crestview), Harsha Konakandla (Wildwood), Keerthana Maddineni (Crestview), Anvika Malugu (Crestview), Arush Thakur (Wildwood), Ritvik Yella (Crestview) and Aryan Yeluri (Crestview)