The Ripon Rabbit
Over the weekend were you by chance tuned into an online game day broadcast, watching an event taking place live in Arkansas? Or perhaps watching an ancillary event like it happening live in California at the same time? If you were, you may have been one of the several hundred online viewers tuning in to watch The Blue Alliance, a website that globally hosts live robotics competition broadcasts as they happen. Think of them as the FOX Sports of robotics. These LIVE broadcasts happen in multiple form around the country as a part of a much bigger game day of robotic competitions like the one shown below.
Schools come together nationwide now and go head to head for a new exciting style of competition, unlike any other high school game you have ever attended.
Ripon high School is no exception and also has a robotics team. Ripon robotics at RHS is known in this exciting new world as First Alliance Robotics, a name honoring their largest sponsor and contributor Alliance Laundry of Ripon.
As local leader and Ripon High School student Dan Zimmerman Jr. tells us, the team he is leading started out last year with around 5 participants and has grown this year to between 15 – 20 kids, collectively working together and strategizing while discussing world domination and how their robotic creation can overthrow teams twice their size. In some cases teams as large as 90 kids, like Sear Robotics at Nicolet High School, will enter the arena for Regionals held in the Milwaukee college stadium.
Zimmerman goes on to say that the team is really only able to attend one event a year working on a limited budget, however he is hopeful that given the growth and interest in the subject the team would attract a few more sponsors and allow them to complete the ultimate goal… World domination!
If you are interested in helping or supporting this effort find more about the squad or contact them on facebook below:
