We’re going to Worlds!' He Exclaimed

Robotics coach ready for challenge

Dan Spak is a pre engineering teacher and coach of the robotics teams at Firestone CLC. His teams have gone to the VEX World Robotics Tournament three years before. Now, they've been invited again.

They'll be among 850 of the best robots from 42 countries across the world to compete over APS Spring Break in Louisville, Kentucky.

How did they get there?

Spak tells us, "We won the Design Award for the State of Ohio. This award is presented to the team that demonstrates an organized and professional approach to the design process, project and time management and organization. It is one of the highest awards VEX gives."

Spak told us Team B (Andrew Piunno, Taban Wall, Gabi Lathrop, Aine Bolton, Helen Hohlefelder, and Andrew Stallsmith ) won the Design Award.


He added, "We also won the Innovate Award. This award is presented to the team that demonstrates a strong combination of ingenuity and innovation when designing their robot. The design exemplifies out of the box thinking that solves the complex problems presented by the competition game.

Team F (Taran Lee, Isabelle Bailey, Rachel Wasik, Michelle Reitz and Eli Nisly) won the Innovation Award.

Coach Spak's teams were were semi-finalists in the overall competition - competition he calls 'fierce' with 84 of the best robots in Ohio competing for this award.

After two days of competing, Team E (Cooper George, Andrew Raymond, Daphnie Kennedy, Jude Lewis, Luke Allen, and Jared Borodkin) successfully competed for this position.

Congratulations to Coach Spak and the robotics wizards from Firestone.

Just a Team from Akron

This year three schools- Kenmore-Garfield, STEM and Firestone- competed in VEX Robotics. They found that VEX is the ultimate laboratory for engineering programs. It teaches the professional skills highlighted by Akron’s College and Career Academy model.

The three teams did so well in the Ohio State competition (having 11 of the 84 teams represented at State and accounting for 19% of the Ohio invitations to the World Tournament) that they want the other schools in Akron to join in. To make this a reality, the three schools agreed to become the founding members of Akron Robotics.

Akron Robotics will be the umbrella organization designed to foster the development of clubs across the city. Each school will retain its identity and compete individually but will travel, support and collaborate with each other.

The first collaboration will be to establish an Akron League. The purpose of the league is to foster new teams and introduce them to competitive robotics. The league will start this fall and hopes to have teams from both high schools (Ellet, North, Buchtel) and middle schools (Litchfield, East, Hyre) participate.