Boulder City robotics team makes nationals

By Jean Reid Norman

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 | 6:23 p.m.

Boulder City’s initial foray into the FIRST Robotics competition last month won the group a trip to Atlanta for the national championships April 15-19.

Eight members of the 15-person High Scalers team took their robot to the Georgia Dome to compete against 87 other teams within their division, mentor Harold Begley said.

The High Scalers’ finish as All-Star Rookie team in the Las Vegas Regional Competition in March entitled it to go to the national competition.

But first the group had two weeks to raise the $5,000 entry fee plus travel expenses.

“I was apprehensive,” Begley said. But the Boulder City community was generous, and the group was able to raise thousands of dollars in its fundraisers in front of Albertsons, CVS and the Boulder Dam Credit Union, he said. In addition, private donors and the local Rotary Clubs helped.

“You usually have only one chance to go to a national competition,” Begley said. “The chance that we would go back to Atlanta in the next year or so was pretty remote.”

Boulder City High School students Nathan Richner, a sophomore and team leader, freshman Blake Goodfellow, sophomore Alexis Lagan, junior Zane Grothe, sophomore Sean Hickey, junior George Kehagian, freshman Silas Morris and senior Brandon Roth made the trip with adult volunteers Richner, Begley, Sy Grothe, Barry Lagan, Kurt Goodfellow and Assistant Principal Steve Wood.

The High Scalers managed to stay in the competition through the morning of the second day, coach John Richner said, and Alexis Lagan was recognized as the Outstanding Safety Captain for the division.

That was more than enough, he said.

“There were a lot of good teams, teams that had participated in this program a long time,” he said. “We were happy to be there.”

The Las Vegas regional competition winners from Cimarron-Memorial High School were also in Atlanta, but the Boulder City team didn’t have much time to mingle with them, Richner said.

Now the High Scalers are waiting for their robot to be shipped back to Boulder City — they hope by the weekend, so they can show it off during Spring Jamboree. The group is scheduled to give a demonstration at 2:30 p.m. Saturday on the gazebo stage, Richner said.

Then Eagle 1 will retire to the converted broadcasting room where it was built to inspire others to join the program in future years, he said.

“These kids that are coming up are the ones that are going to have to solve the problems we are facing and that we will face in the future,” Richner said. “This is preparing them.”