Team 10435 Circuit Breakers Perform well at FTC Robotics World Championship

Congratulations to Waukee High School sophomore robotics team, Team 10435 Circuit Breakers for their outstanding performance at the First Tech Challenge (FTC) Robotics World Championship! This third-year team’s unique design ideas and hard work took them a long way this season. The team won their league championship then the sub-state regional championship in Sioux City to earn a spot in the Iowa FTC championship along with three other Waukee teams.  The Circuit Breakers won the Iowa championship and earned a bid to compete at the FTC World Championship in Detroit, Michigan April 24-27.

The format of the championship event involved three days of randomly selected placement matches to qualify for the semi-finals. Entering the World Championships ranked #7, the Circuit Breakers were very happy with the outcome of their placement matches. The team went undefeated for a fourth-place finish in the 80-team Edison Division, earning a spot as team captain in the semi-finals. They also set a world record of 555 points when paired with the #1 ranked team in the very first match of the tournament. In the semi-finals, they were looking at some tough matches, but they managed to keep it close despite being the underdogs and facing the #2 ranked team in the World. In the best-of-three series, they won one game and lost the other two. A teammate’s robot malfunction proved to be the deciding factor.

Last year, the Circuit Breakers won the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award at the World Championships, but did not place high enough to earn a spot in the semi-finals. After qualifying for Worlds two years in a row, the team has begun to believe in their potential which has motivated them to continually push for improvement, and they cannot wait to grow their success in the years to come.