BY KAREN BOSSICK

Four Wood River High School students took first-place honors at the 2018 Idaho VEX Robotics State Championship held Saturday.

Wood River High School juniors Luke Dean and Ethan Wilson formed an alliance with Wood River High School freshmen John Chen and Griffin Connelly and two students from Ridgevue High School in Nampa.

And they staved off a fierce challenge from the 2016 and 2017 defending champions—a team composed  of Wood River High School seniors Carter Gerringa, Dawson Hicks, Cameron Maxwell, Drew Merrick and Carson Smith.

Dean, Wilson, Chen and Connelly will now compete against more than 550 of the top robotics teams from throughout the country and around the world at the 2018 VEX Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Ky., in late April.

The four have established a GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/wood-river-robotics to raise funds to finance their trip.

“Luke and Ethan’s robot is very consistent and well-rounded with repeatable mechanics, great driving and an excellent autonomous programming code,” said WRHS engineering teacher and robotics coach Kevin Lupton. “Griffin and John have built a very nice robot, as well, with many hours devoted to their build. What a wonderful opportunity for a freshman team to be able to attend the world championship!”

Dean and Wilson’s team Atomic Box finished the qualifier rounds in second place overall before forming an alliance with Chen and Connelly’s Kung Gravy team and the HAVOC team from Ridgevue High School. The competition bought together 31 of the top high school and middle school robotics teams from across the state.

VEX Robotics is the largest and fastest growing middle school and high school robotics program in the world, engaging more than 16,000 teams from 40 countries.

This year’s competition challenged students to build a robot that could drive around a 12-foot-square field and stack plastic cones on a variety of objects.

Blaine County School District’s robotics program, known as the BCB Bots, began nine years ago. One of its teams was one of the highest ranked in the world.