Local homeschoolers take top honors at area robotics competition

It was a double-header championship game for the Howe Bulldogs youth football program on Saturday The third and fourth grade combined team as well as the fifth and sixth grade combined team reached the league championship game At the end of the day, both teams held high the gold football championship trophies

The third and fourth grade played at noon and Howe kicked to Collinsville to start the game On the second play of the game, Howe's Will Ingram

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Texoma Home Educators, a team made up of homeschoolers in and around Grayson County, took top honors among 52 teams at last weekend's BEST Robotics competition The team garnered first place overall, third place robot, and top presentation, and will be competing in the state championship in early December

BEST, which stands for

Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology, began at TI in Sherman in 1993 and has spread nationwide to include over 20,000 public, private, and home school students It is a six weeks robotics competition in which students are given a "kit" with materials such as plywood, PVC, a little plexiglass and sheet metal, four motors and servos, and

Continued on page 4 allowed for the Bulldogs to defer to the second half which allowed Howe's defense to make a big stand to start the game and turn away an opponent on their first possession for only the third time this season

Howe drove to the Whitesboro side of the field but forced a fourth and short which the Bulldogs were unable to convert The Bearcats then capitalized on the short field and went three plays and 54 yards resulting in a Weston Hickman 18-yard touchdown run giving Whitesboro an early 7-0 lead with 2:29 left in the first quarter

Howe's next possession ended in a punt and Whitesboro then missed a 32-yard field goal which hooked wide left

The Bulldogs got a break when Hunter Cheatham punted the ball down the field and Parker Blount recovered a fumble by the returner The Dogs were in great shape at the Bearcats 42 yard line and were once again in position to convert a fourth down, but an offsides pentalty took the fourthand-short to a fourth-and-long and

Bearcat 34 yard line, but Chase Harvey's first pass of the drive was intercepted, giving Whitesboro near mid-field

Both teams exchanged punts before the the first half clock expired and Whitesboro went shocked and slumped into the locker room with a 7-0 lead over Howe

Thanks to Clay Marshall's coin-toss call of tails, Howe took the ball to open the second half and promptly raced down the field on only three plays that covered 75 yards Chase Harvey threw a quick pass down the sidelines to Mason Riggs who outran everyone on the field for a 63-yard dink-and-dunk touchdown Calley Vick's PAT came up short and Howe trailed 7-6 with 11:20 remaining in the third

Howe started to take control of the game on the next possession when linebacker Andrew Griffin intercepted a Scout Sanders pass which gave to Dogs the ball at the Whitesboro 33 yard line. Four plays later, the Harvey to Harvey connection put the go-ahead points on the board for a moment, but the

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Robotics

Continued from page 1 t d nt, noted "Being on TH E 's ics team has taught me so about not just engineering, so about the marketing t of a company and about smanship " have to construct a robot to accomplish a particular goal The 2017 theme is fire and rescue, and teams had to create a robot which simulated rescuing a victim from an industrial explosion, retrieving barrels of chemicals, and putting out the fire by shooting ping-pong balls at plastic cups

Teams portray themselves as startup companies at a trade show, giving a marketing presentation to a panel of investors, and constructing and staffing an exhibit booth Teams also drive their robots in a series of head-tohead competitions

The BEST award is a composite score based on a team's robot performance, creating an engineering notebook documenting their design and production process, the presentation to judges, the exhibit information booth, and overall spirit and sportsmanship Anabelle Graham, a second year ma Home Educators has been eting in BEST since 1998 they debuted with a team of students With twentymembers this year in fifth through eleventh grade, this is the fourth consecutive time the team has advanced to the state championship

"Our production team worked smoothly this year, creating a robot that won us 3rd place at the competition The presentation team practiced hard, writing and memorizing their presentations so well that they won best presentation at the competition," commented sophomore Jacob Williams, the team president "The hard work from these teams along with our exhibit, engineering notebook, and spirit and sportsmanship teams really paid off, winning us 1st place overall at the competition over about 50 teams! I’m incredibly proud to lead this team of students who put so much effort into winning these awards "

The state competition will be held December 7-9 at UTD and the Dr Pepper stadium in Frisco.

Continued from page 2 score was quickly erased by a holding call Backed up to the 14 yard line, Howe could not get in and turned the ball over on downs

Howe's defense held again on Whitesboro's next possession giving the Dogs the ball at their own 20 Three plays later, Howe fumbled which gave Whitesboro an opportunity deep in Howe territory Three plays later, Sanders scampered around the right end for 24 yards and the Bearcats score to extend their lead to 14-6 after the successful PAT with 4:20 on the third quarter clock

Howe drove nine plays on their next possession before being forced to punt The Bearcats then put together a back breaking 11- play drive that went 78 yards Brooks Barker ran the wildcat play for an 8-yard touchdown to give the Bearcats a 21-6 lead with 9:05 remaining in the game

Afer each team traded fourth quarter punts, Howe, trying to make something happen, threw back-to-back interceptions that were ran back for touchdowns

The first was Nolan Frith and the second was Barker to give the Bearcats a 34-6 lead with 4:35 left Griffin would plow through and jump over defenders to score a 1yard touchdown late in the game to bring the final score to 34-16

Howe will travel to Pilot Point this Friday to face the Bearcats who lost to Pottsboro, 27-21