PCM Robotics heads to the World Championship

Following an incredibly successful season, PCM’s Robotics team, the PCM Alchemists, is heading to Houston, Texas for the FTC World Championship from April 18 through April 22. This comes as the culmination of months of work, and a fundraising campaign lasting a month and a half where the team managed to raise just over 10 thousand dollars. Throughout the season, the robotics team has worked incredibly hard to not just create an efficient and effective robot for this season’s game, but also to iterate upon their designs and perform at the absolute best of their ability. Much of this has meant taking on a willingness to rapidly learn new skills and apply them, and also to keep pushing on past any failures which may occur. Given this, the World Championship represents the capstone of their accomplishments.

Getting the money to go to worlds has also been no easy feat. In the time between the State Championship and the World Championship, the team had to work to raise over 10 thousand dollars. This gave them an incredibly tight timetable where the team had to hold and attend as many fundraising events as possible. Some of the most notable fundraisers include the PCM fine arts showcase, where the team received a two thousand dollar donation from the Fine Arts Boosters, and the Pancake Breakfast and Ice Cream social events held on April 1 where the team showcased the robot in person to attendees. Additionally, the team reached out to a number of businesses for further support. Of these larger donations came both from larger companies like John Deere and MidAmerican, to a number of smaller more local sponsors like Jersey Freeze and Star Equipment.

At the World Championship, the team will be representing not just Prairie City and Monroe, but all of Iowa against over 190 other teams from over 50 different countries in every corner of the globe. The FTC World Championship will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston, one of the largest event centers in North America.

Livestreams of the event will be hosted online, more details for which will be found on www.firstchampionship.org/watch.