KINGSFORD — The Kingsford High School robotics team was heading downstate today to compete in the FIRST in Michigan State Championship on Thursday at Saginaw Valley State University in University Center, Mich.

The team, named The ROK, last qualified for state in 2019. To qualify they competed in two regional meets and took second place in Escanaba and third place in Sault Ste. Marie, where they also received the Industrial Design Award. The season runs for about six weeks and most teams take part in two competitions.

The team has five members — seniors and co-captains Emma Marotz and Christopher Burie, along with Lance Harry, plus juniors Roamer White and Ryleigh Rivard. They are coached by Brian Olson and Joe Kriegl, who have been with the program since its start in 2017. Chelsea Nelson will attend as a chaperone.

Competing in the state tournament will be much different than the regional competitions, which usually have about 40 teams, Marotz said. This will have four times that number.

“Set up is at 8 a.m., but we don’t start matches until 5 p.m. Eastern time. Because 160 teams are competing, you have 160 robots to get ready, inspected. It’s a bigger scale,” she explained.

Her brother, Jacob, a seventh-grader, went to watch the competition last year with their father. They said it was a completely different experience.

At the Jan. 6 kickoff for the season, the game planned for this year’s competitions was announced. The game, called Crescendo, is music-based. Teams of three collect round disks “notes” and shoot them into special bins that represent amps or speakers. They compete against another team of three and also against each other for points.

“You fight against them, but you’re also friends with all of them,” she said.

The team met the next Monday after the kickoff. “We watched a video of the game, started going through it, talking about things like ‘We might be strong in this but might not be strong in that’ — just talking ideas,” she said. “We didn’t start building until a few days later. We were waiting on the designs to be finalized.”

There are companies that build robots, she said. “They get the challenge the same time as all of us, and as soon as they get the challenge, they immediately start building. Then teams are allowed to use these designs and then modify them,” Marotz said.

For example, they modified the intake on their robot from a design built by a team in Australia.

“We build our intake so it was safer. You suck the note up through the intake, but it also helps us shoot it. We have this joke that you can tell when we’re shooting — we are the loudest team in the room. You can hear the engine start up,” she said.

The robot has many parts donated from local businesses or printed on the district’s 3D printers.

She has been on the team for five years, Burie for six years and Harry joined last year. The other two members are new this year.

“That’s nice thing about having a small team. Everyone has their own special part, but if they need you to jump in on something, you can do it,” she said.

Marotz serves as media person. She does all the Facebook posts, Instagram, updates the webpage. Burie does all the programming.

“It gives me real-life experience in coding, which is what made me decide I want to go into computer science,” Burie said.

Harry is their CAD expert, does all the 3D models and 3D designs. White serves as the human player and helps in many different areas. Rivard does all the scouting and data analysis.

The team would not be able to compete without their sponsors, which include LiUNA, Gene Haas Foundation, Flivver Nation, MJ Drilling, RC Fabrication, Systems Control and A&W.

The team is hoping they will be able to reach the world high school robotics competition later this year.