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FERNDALE — Ferndale Middle School’s robotics team was able to take home a state championship earlier this month and will now compete in the world championship next year.
The school’s team, Giggle Pickles, competed in the Michigan FIRST Tech Challenge State Championship-Southeast at Macomb Community College in Warren Dec. 7-8, where it won a state championship — named the “Winning Alliance” — at the event. The other team that won the title as part of the alliance was S.W.A.R.M. from Saline Middle School.
Nick Kokotovich, the Giggle Pickles’ fourth year coach, praised the team and its efforts this year, including not losing any rounds at the state championship.
“They were really, really dedicated, and we learned things and used things that we’ve never used before,” he said of this year’s team. “Different programming methods that we’ve never done before. That’s what really allowed us to be at good footing as soon as the real season started and have a robot that was capable of actually winning the championship.”
A robotics team is tasked to build a robot over the course of several weeks in the lead-up to competition and use it to accomplish a list of set tasks.
Giggle Pickles competed in a field of 72 teams over the course of two days. Parker Radowiec, 12, has been a member of the team for two years and is one of the robot’s drivers.
Radowiec, a seventh grader from Ferndale, was ecstatic to win a state championship with the rest of his team.
“I didn’t even know we were going to get there,” he said. “And when we won, I was like, whoa, I did not expect that. The whole team put a bunch of effort into this, and I’m really happy that we made it this far.”
Kokotovich said he was impressed by how the team performed and how it didn’t get rattled by other teams, especially when its robot got hit or malfunctioned.
“They’re just driving and getting used to the controls and different situations, and just to watch them get better, put in that time and just want to be there was just really impressive,” he said. “They were able to handle it because of all that practice. And I’m just really, really impressed over the last year, all the time they put in and seeing how it blossomed into actually winning.”
In addition to the state championship, Kokotovich was awarded the Compass Award. The award “recognizes an adult coach or mentor who has given outstanding guidance and support to a team throughout the year and demonstrates to the team what it means to be a gracious professional,” as described by the FIRST Robotics Competition. Compass Award winners are nominated by the student competitors.
“He’s a really awesome dude,” Radowiec said. “He buys stuff for the team. He does a lot of stuff. He helps us with everything.”
“It was absolutely awesome,” Kokotovich said of winning the award. “It was really, really touching that they would go through that effort to actually put together something to say good things about me.”
Giggle Pickles now will compete in the FIRST Championship in Houston April 16-19, 2025.
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