By Mr. Mike Murphy, Engineering and Technology Department Chair, Director of Technology

Octoberfest at John Bapst brought together teams from as far away as Cape Elizabeth and as close as three schools from Bangor, All Saints Catholic School, Bangor High School and John Bapst. All together John Bapst hosted 26 teams from 8 different schools. The tournament was the first full-sized robotics tournament in the state this season. If the competition is any indication of what the rest of the season has in store, robotics is in for heavy competition.

Over the course of the qualification rounds, which comprise the first half of the tournament, all four of Bapst’s competing teams finished in the top 9 slots.  This ultimately led to two teams from Old Town High School pairing up with two teams from John Bapst.

Bapst teams won all of the elimination matches, all the way to the final match where Bapst’s Benchwarmers – 2142Z , along with their partner team OTHS Hadronic- 20734C, paired off against another Bapst team, the Rabid Robo Rabbits – 2142A, and their partner teams OTHS Baryonic – 20734B.

The match was intense, and was decided by a single scoring object being only inches from flipping the victory around.

The Benchwarmers edged out the Rabid Robo Rabbits by 3 points to take the Tournament champion.  Not to be out done, however, the Rabid Robo Rabbits took the Individual Skills Champion award with an impressive score of 179. Their closest competitor, the Benchwarmers, came in at 169, putting them at #352 out of a current 1463 teams in the worldwide rankings.

In addition to that, Rabid Robo Rabbits – 2142A also was awarded the top prize of the Excellence Award. This award is given to the team that performs well in all areas of competition, and is reserved for only teams that can compete, interview, and comport themselves in such a way to be a model for all other teams.

Additional awards at the tournament went to Cape Elizabeth for Design, Bangor High and John Bapst(2142B) for special recognition by the judges, and to All Saints for the best team costume.