R4Creating team looks ahead to robotics world championship

RIO RANCHO — They were, not too long ago, just three kids figuring out the name to their robotics team.

But now, Ollie Schlichte, Liam Bohannan and Enzo Barnes are figuring out how to compete against the world.

The elementary school-age students, using the team name “We’re Figuring It Out,” were one of two winning teams at the state championship, hosted by Rio Rancho-based nonprofit R4Creating, that qualified for the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas from May 6-14. The team’s win marks the first time a group of elementary school students from the science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) organization are headed to the top robotics competition, where they will face 420 elementary schools. The boys will also join The ASK Academy at the championship.

“We feel really good,” Bohannan, the team leader, said in an interview Thursday before practice with Schlichte and Barnes at R4Creating, off of Sara Road. “I think (qualifying for the world competition) says we are all really good in our own aspects, but we need each other to succeed.”

The team could win the World Champion trophy or other awards for their creativity and sportsmanship. Stevie Rae Robertson, the team’s coach, said she is proud of the boys’ accomplishments.

“I know they work so hard and, to be quite honest, we knew that they had it in them,” Robertson said. “We just didn’t know it was going to be so soon. They just blew us out of the water.”

The world competition is sponsored by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, which includes Shelly Gruenig, founder of R4Creating, as a member of its board of directors.

Sixty-three different countries speaking at least 10 languages, including sign language, will be represented at the world championship, according to Gruenig. Bohannan will work to improve his German skills, but he said he is also impressed by the other state championship winner, the New Mexico School For The Deaf, which goes by the team name “Robo-Runners.”

“Anyone can go to World if they really put their heart into it,” Bohannan said.

Schlichte said he will use Google Translate to ask his foreign team members how they got into robotics and if they’re having a good time in the U.S.

Enzo said the thought of the championship makes him nervous and excited at the same time. Competing with his peers from all around the world is nerve-wracking, but he thinks it will be fun meeting new people.

In preparing for the event, Schlichte said he is spending a lot of time working on autonomous code since much of the competition will be conducted by teams without using a remote control.

Kim Alessandra, a judge adviser for VEX, said Thursday during team practice that she had not seen the students in a while, but she noted that the boys had improved their autonomous robotics skills.

When it comes to the the boys’ approach to the world competition, Alessandra had some advice: be sober-minded, focus on what you’re doing and keep your eye on the prize. She also had some words of wisdom on the lighter side: be polite, be kind and have fun.

Schlichte, Bohannan and Barnes practiced that advice Thursday. They acknowledged they still had a lot to learn when it comes to robotics but would work together with a common goal.

“We don’t know everything to begin with — and we’re not going to know everything,” Schlichte said, “but we are going to win.”