Westonka Tonkabots - World Robotics Competition

First Robotics Competition (FRC) is a robotics competition in which 8-12th graders have 8 weeks to design and build a robot to compete in the First Robotics Regional Championship at the end of February and if victorious, they get the privilege to compete in the FRC World Championship in April, in Houston, Texas. Through this competition, students gain real world skills in designing, building, programming and teamwork, while building alliances with other teams to compete.

The competitions have grown and morphed throughout the years and challenges change up every year. This year the games involves two alliances, of three robots competing in picking up frisbee-like rings, taking them back to their side of the field and either throwing or placing them into scoring mechanisms, including climbing a chain (we rocked this at regionals, by the way). You get extra points for all 3 robots working in collaboration as well. See this year's FRC kick off video: https://youtu.be/9keeDyFxzY4?si=gXsl4b88gC3dp8D0

Our team (Mound Westonka Tonkabots) was formed and has gone to regionals since 2016, and was an underdog this year with a starting rank of 47th place (out of 57 teams) and won in first place, with their robot named Sid, with the googly eye. Our team has several seniors this year and they're working with many lower classmen to both lead and mentor students for the years to come.

This is the best the team has performed in our history. They've never made it to playoffs let alone grabbed the regional championship title, in which, they won the Best Autonomous code award, got the highest match score of any team with the only triple digit score (twice) and then won the Double Decker Championship between the winning alliances of the other regional that happened simultaneously, in the same stadium.

We have been very fortunate to have amazing support from our corporate sponsors and our school district to make all of this possible and we couldn't have gotten to this point without help! To make the trip to Houston, Texas World Championship possible we're asking for help to cover the costs of student transportation and lodging. We are trying to raise $10,000 for student lodging and transportation. Please help this highly talented and motivated but poor team, in their chance to win the FRC World Championship.

For larger donations, or for tax deductions please use the following link below, for the MWHS Tonkbots through the Friends of MWHS, a 501c3 nonprofit organization for charitable

donations that supports the Tonkabots and other MWHS programs and activities. https://www.friendsofmwhs.com/#home Click on Friends of MWHS and then choose “Donate via Paypal”. Credit card/debit card option is available.