Northland Robotics Teams Prepare for Worlds

DULUTH, Minn. — With three local high school robotics teams headed to the world’s championship of robotics, the Arrowhead Robotics Coalition arranged for a practice arena for the Denfeld, Hermantown and Babbitt teams.

The DNA 4009 team from Denfeld is appearing in its first Worlds Championship since 2017, although they qualified in 2020, there was no event because it was shut down by COVID.

“I have the medal in my room of “Engineering Inspiration” which was the award we won at that time, and this year we won the same award, and we are actually going to worlds this year,” said Carter Wedin Denfeld Build Captain.

Each Northland team got into the tournament in a different way.

Denfeld received the Engineering Inspiration Award.

The Babbitt 5653 team won the Impact Award at the Lake Superior Regional competition qualifying them to be among the teams in the worlds

Hermantown won their last tournament in La Crosse, making them eligible to appear on the big stage.

“It’s really-really exciting, I have been in robotics since 2017 and it’s been my dream every single year to make it to worlds and it’s really cool that this is the year to do it,” said Mateo Sandoval-Luna, Hermantown Business Leader.

Each team is responsible for raising the needed money to make the trip.

All three teams are looking for help and have set up donation sites. Denfeld, Hermantown, Babbit. 

Businesses in the community have helped quite a bit. They’ve donated funds and provided products for their silent auction that Denfeld will be holding the week after the championship.
“It means the world, literally, the Worlds, we say it time and time again but it’s something we can’t do without support, we are a 501(c)(3) non-profit so we don’t have some sort of income coming in,” said Sofia DeCambaliza, Denfeld Business Captain.

“It’s amazing, we probably wouldn’t be able to go without them and just having that support really just hits hard because it makes us all feel good that we have a community that backs us up, especially because we are not a typical sports team,” said Zaidea Kinziger, Denfeld Social Media Manager.

Today was the last practice run for the teams before they head out on a long bus ride down to Houston, Texas.

It was one last chance to make final adjustments to their creations ad test them one more time in the arena

“This is our third competition this year, we know this robot and we know how to fix everything on it and we have encountered every problem that we will so far, so really we know how to work on this, we are prepared for anything that happens,” said Wedin.

“The vision is doing really good, intake more a little forward, shoot. There you go, eyes on the station. You are getting much better at the acceleration,” said Ethan Stephenson, Hermantown Driver.

The World Championship starts with practices on Wednesday with the final competitions taking place next Saturday.