Congratulations to our RoboDawg FRC teams on having great weekend – and WINNING – at the West Michigan District FRC tournament. All our teams played well and their robots really performed! Team 216 seeded high enough to be an alliance captain and both 288 and 244 were picked to playoff alliances. This was a 42 team event, and getting all our teams into the playoffs is an accomplishment.
We are really proud of the way our teams work together, and it is exciting to see a team have a really spectacular day. Team 244 has had a number of late nights over the past two weeks, and this team has totally rebuilt their intake and their shooter. They were working until 11:00 on Wednesday night and they were working after school on Thursday – right up until we loaded the trailer on Thursday afternoon. They finished assembling their new (and vastly improved) intake while waiting to be inspected at GVSU. They took that robot out onto the field and kept making it better throughout the GVSU event. In the playoffs they helped the number 4 seeded alliance prove that three really good robots can beat two excellent robots. Their alliance could not have won the event without them being a high-scoring robot. This 4th seeded alliance had to play and beat the #3 seed, the #2 seed, and the #1 seeded alliance on their way to victory. It was exciting to see top ranked programs that are used to winning all the time taken down by three scrappy robots played well. Well done, 244. It took your whole team to get this done. Congratulations, also, to our other RoboDawg team, without whose help they would not have become top performers at this event.
The 2024 State of Michigan High School VEX Robotics Championship was held at Kettering University on February 23 and 24, and once again the Grandville High School RoboDawgs came home as State Champions!
The team’s victory came after a long two days of competition. The winning alliance of RoboDawg team 288A (captian: Senior Tegran Grigorian) and 248B (captain: Junior Tanner Peterson) only prevailed after winning their way through a 64 team playoff, finishing their battle with two consecutive wins in the finals at 9:30 on Saturday night.
Team 248D (Captain: Junior Logan Schwandner) won the state Inspire Award. The Inspire Award is given to the team that demonstrates outstanding leadership through action to other teams. This team is identified by their peers as a leader in innovative and creative design in the robotics community. This team serves as an example to others and embraces the concept of cooperative learning.
Seven RoboDawg teams played at the State Championship, including:
State Champions, 288A and 248B
Inspire Award Winner, 248D
Other State Championship VEX Teams, 288E (Captain: Junior Nolan Clausen), 244B (Captain: Sophomore Liam Still), 248A (Captain: Senior Nick Slager), and 244D (Captain: Junior Paul Leaver)
Congratulations to all these outstanding teams for qualifying for and representing Grandville at the 2024 State of Michigan VEX Championship.
Come out Sunday, February 18 and see a MultiGP Drone Race at the Grandville Robotics Competition Center! Teams from across Michigan race from 3pm – 5pm! Special opportunity to “Fly Along” with an experienced pilot from 4:30pm – 5pm. Free Admission!
The Grandville Robotics Competition Center (sponsored by Westwood AI) will be hosting the State of Michigan Middle School VEX Robotics State Championship next Friday and Saturday, February 16 and 17.
The Grandville RoboDawgs are pleased to announce a long-term partnership with Westwood AI for naming rights to Grandville Public School’s new Robotics Competition Center. This is the second naming rights arrangement tied to the RoboDawgs’ new facility. Last year, Bradford White Corporation, an industry-leading manufacturer of water heaters, boilers and storage tanks, committed $125,000 to support the program and obtain naming rights to the Robotics Fabrication Lab in this robotics complex.
Westwood AI is a global leader in identifying, leveraging and scaling solutions which allow companies and governmental units to seamlessly integrate Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence into their culture. This west Michigan company, a key consultant to the State of Michigan, is providing funds to support advanced robotics development and competition at the Grandville center.
Under the terms of the sponsorship arrangement, Westwood AI will provide $50,000 in annual funding over the five-year agreement. Naming rights sponsors for the facility, one of the largest built-for-purpose robotics competition centers in the country, are being coordinated through the Grandville Academic Team Boosters.
“We are excited to have a partner for our robotics programs with deep machine learning and artificial intelligence experience. We are grateful for their support of this competition space and we know it will create new advanced competition opportunities for our scholars” said Roger Bearup, Grandville Public Schools’ Superintendent.
“We are so excited to be partnering with Grandville Public Schools and to provide funding that will positively impact students across the region through development of increasingly advanced robotics capabilities and competitions. We appreciate the Grandville RoboDawgs’ long history of success and are very excited to see the evolution of this amazing program in this new competition center,” said Dakoyta Greenman, Founder, Westwood AI.
“The Grandville robotics program serves hundreds of Grandville Public School students, and thousands of competitors from across North America. We have embraced change as a constant, and our programs expose students to leading-edge technology as we enhance their education. We started racing autonomous boats on area lakes in 2010. More than a decade ago, our RoboDawgs were the first competitive robotics team to build, program, and fly autonomous aerial vehicles. We are leaders in building autonomous competitive robots and we are very excited to partner with Westwood AI to develop more advanced robotics competitions using AI to enhance robot autonomy” said Doug Hepfer, GATB President.
About the Grandville Public Schools
Grandville Public Schools has been a leader in educational robotics for 25 years. Beginning with one high school robotics team in 1998, the program has now grown to include more than 100 teams. More than 700 students participate on Grandville robotics teams, designing, building, and programming robotics for competitions around the world. Grandville fields more than 20 Lego League and VEX IQ teams made up of fourth through sixth graders. These students go on to participate in the VEX Robotics Competition at the middle school and high school. The district fields middle school drone teams in the RECF Aerial Drone Competition. The Grandville High School RoboDawgs are one of the United States’ largest and most accomplished high school robotics teams. Grandville High School also fields teams that compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition, VEX AI, and Bell Advanced Vertical Robotics. High school teams build autonomous vehicles to compete on land, water, and in the air. The RoboDawgs’ high-altitude balloon program conducts research in near space and works to achieve long distance sustained high altitude balloon flight through neutral buoyancy.
About Westwood AI
Westwood AI began through an observation, that today’s technical world moves at such an advanced pace that most Business Owners, Governmental Management, and Defense leadership have a very difficult time reviewing and communicating their needs with the advanced technical lexicon. We exist for the sole purpose to be that conduit between the two worlds while developing the clients understanding to a point that self-sustainability is not the benchmark but they are left with a vision of how their future could look. For more information, visit https://www.westwoodai.com/.
Grandville’s new robotics competition center continues to expand the competitive robotics programs for middle school students! This winter students in Grandville Public Schools can choose to compete with RECF Aerial Drones, Square One Underwater Rovers, MultiGP Racing Drones, or Ultimate Combat Robots.
We will start our annual RECF Aerial Drones teams in January, where students program learn to program and fly drones on a full-size competition field. This year’s challenge has teamwork, piloting, and autonomous flight challenges. RECF Aerial Drones teams will program and practice in January, and compete in February and March.
Our middle school kids will finally get to do underwater drones! We have pool time and we have ordered a new supply of parts. Where else can you have fun making things the race underwater and collect and deploy game pieces at depths of 10-12 feet? Students learn about underwater propulsion and navigation – and discover buoyancy! These teams will build in January and February and compete in March.
Drone racing is fast and fun – and we’ll be starting aerial drone racing for middle school students. With competition drones moving more than 70mph and immersive first-person-video, these drones make video games feel so 1970. Drone racing starts in February and our pilots will compete in April and May. This is a once-a-week activity, so it will fit alongside any of our other robotics programs.
“Battlebots” comes to Grandville this year, and middle school students who have done VEX robotics this year will be the first to have the opportunity to build and battle in our Ultimate Robot Combat cages. This program will get organized in February and compete in May.
To register a Grandville Middle School student for one of these programs, click here: https://bit.ly/411EzCM
For the last ten years, Mike Evele and Doug Hepfer have hosted our VEX Robotics Summer camp at Camp Newaygo. We started this as one of the first Engineering summer camps to welcome both young men and young women, and it has become a fun tradition for middle school and high school students from across Michigan. More than 90% of students who attend return the following summer. This camp is open to all students entering 7th grade in the fall through those entering college this fall.
CAMP OVERVIEW: Campers arrive on the morning of Monday, June 10 and depart camp on the afternoon of Friday, June 14. Camp fee of $695 includes supplies, overnight accommodations, meals, and all camp activities.
YOUR INSTRUCTORS: Doug Hepfer & Mike Evele, coaches of Grandville High School RoboDawg teams, who have qualified teams for the VEX World Championship in eleven of the last twelve years – and college-age RoboDawgs.
CAMP DESCRIPTION: This is the best of all camp experiences! Students will build and program robots – and they’ll participate in waterfront activities, canoe to an island, fly on the ziplines, tie-dye shirts, climb the power pole, and more. This camp is fun – and it combines daily camp activities with robot building and programming. Working in small teams, students will use the VEX® Robotics V5 System to compete in fun daily challenges based on the 2024-2025 VEX Challenge. The VEX® System is both user-friendly and powerful. It’s the same system used in major regional and national robotics competitions, as well as in many high school and university-level robotics classes.
Campers will build a frame and base, interchange wheels and treads, create geared armatures and engineer wiring. Your team’s bot will have to adapt to compete in autonomous and user-piloted challenges based on the 2024-2025 VEX Challenge. This camp will require that participants design and build mechanical devices, and that they complete programming. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about building with complex robotic sensors, advanced robot arms, and geared drive trains. At the end of the camp, students will have a fully-developed strategy for the VEX Challenge announced in May, 2024, and they will have experience with the mechanical and programming concepts required to build a highly competitive robot.
To register for camp, parents must complete two steps:
Earlier this month our RoboDawgs were excited to celebrate the grand opening of the new Grandville Robotics Competition Center! This is the largest built-for-purpose technology competition facility in the country, with over 60,000 square feet of STEM education and competition space. Our first competition season in this new facility will run from October 2023 through September 2024. We will host a wide range of robotics and drone events that will draw competitors and spectators from across West Michigan – and from all over the Great Lakes region. The schedule for this year already has more than two dozen VEX robotics competition dates, the Middle School State VEX Championship, a FIRST Lego League Regional Qualifier, three Bell Advanced Vertical Robotics events, three RECF Aerial Drone Competitions, three Ultimate Robot Combat events, and five Elementary VEX IQ events. With the events already scheduled, this facility will play host to more than 20,000 competitors and spectators this year.
We are pleased to offer area businesses the opportunity to place advertising banners inside the new arena. A limited amount of space is available this year for businesses to have 2’x2′, 2’x3′, or 2’x4′ advertising banners.
Our vendor will print all banners. To indicate your interest and to request a mock-up for your banner, click on the following link and complete the requested information. We’ll have a mock-up design completed for you and send it for your approval. Once approved, we’ll collect your payment for the current competition year and hang your banner on the arena wall. Here’s the link to request an advertising banner mock-up: https://airtable.com/appxDLdIBFkFsNC11/shrzGZEcV9Qouubmw
For more information or to have questions answered, contact James Tebo (jtebo@grandvillerobotics.com)
Advertising banners will hang in a designated area on the south arena wall, right in from of the audience and in full view of competitors.
The Grandville Academic Team Boosters is soliciting advertising to support our Grandville robotics teams. All advertising must be age appropriate for those involved and consistent with Grandville Public Schools’ codes of conduct and Grandville Public Schools policies, including those prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age or intellectual or physical disability. Ad content is limited to: the company’s name, the company’s logo, a company tagline widely used in their other advertising, a photo of an officer or employee of the company, and/or a photo of the company’s office, store, or vehicle.
This is a working model of the Robotics Tribute Wall that will be installed in the new Robotics Competition Center. Visitors will be able to activate the display and watch a motor turn the full wall of gears.
Grandville Robotics is celebrating its 25th anniversary – and this year we’ve opened the first built-for-purpose educational Robotics Competition Center in the United States. To raise money for new equipment and operating expenses in this new facility, the Grandville Academic Team Boosters are leading the sale of Tribute Gears. Gears purchased by supporters will be installed in the Spring of 2024 on a full-wall display in the new competition center.
Robotics program supporters (including individuals, families, and companies of all sizes) have the opportunity to put their name and message on this tribute wall by donating and adding an inscription for your gear. Gears are a great way to recognize someone that was on a robotics team, share a memory from the program, honor someone who made an impact through our teams, commemorate your years with the teams, or share some other thought or experience with our robotics teams.
Supporters can donate to support the teams by ordering a gear online – by downloading the form below and mailing the gear order with your check. You will receive an email or letter with a proof copy of your gear inscription, together with a receipt for your donation to the Grandville Academic Team Boosters. (The GATB is a 501(c)3 public charity approved by the IRS and your contribution may be tax-deductible. Consult your tax professional.)
There are four gear sizes available for your donation of $250 – $2,500. To donate online, follow this link to select your gear size (using the arrow beside the donation amount), enter your gear inscription (where it says “+ Add your inscription here”), and submit your donation with a debit or credit card: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=UE9V99QVDZM7Q
To mail in your gear design with a check, download the file below and follow the instructions on the form.
The Grandville High School RoboDawgs are about to celebrate their 25th anniversary! Our coaches are looking for everyone who has been a part of our 25 years of success and asking them to add basic information for our 25th Anniversary RoboDawgs Directory.
RoboDawgs 