Manchester Machine Makers Win First Place for the Think Award

On March 13, 2021. the Manchester Machine Makers robotics team was recognized with First Place for the Think Award at the Vermont State Championships for FIRST Tech Challenge. About 30 teams competed at the event, coming from across Vermont, and from several states beyond (teams list: Vermont FTC Registration | The University of Vermont (uvm.edu))

The Think Award is one of seven judged awards that were presented at the event, and primarily focuses on the team’s use of math and science to drive its engineering design process (I’m including a complete description of the award below). Math and science-driven design is a strong suit for our team — at last year’s Vermont State Championship (the team’s rookie year), we were recognized with second place for the same award.

This year’s team members are Charlotte Ruley and Taylor Jarvis (both 11th grade at BBA), Isaac Vernon (9th grade at BBA), Aleks Rutins (8th grade at The Dorset School), and Jason Giedja (7th grade at Long Trail School). The team’s coaches this year are Mike Cole and Meg Ruley, and its mentors are Bob Ruley and Patty Rutins.

The team is a chartered 4-H Club by UVM Extension, and recruits team members in grades 7-12 from all schools in the Manchester area. They are always open to having new members join the team. Engineered is proud to sponsor the makers of tomorrow.

Here’s how you can help the Manchester Machine Makers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gEHxUjATSM