Columbus School students and their CIP team mates took the third place in the First Robotics Competition, last week with their team, CIP, in Miami.

Seven Columbus School students: Pablo Monsalve, Emiliano Mesa, Camilo Giraldo, Nicolas Calle, Sara Gomez, Agustin Jaramillo, and Tomas Echeverri, took part in the competition and success of the team. Last year CIP was second to last in the competition, but this year the team finished third out of forty seven teams.

“We learned from our mistakes, last year we didn’t know what to do their were so many things that you should do during your pre season, and offseason, and it is important to take that into account, all the part of scouting, understanding, learning about other robots, just analysing and studying what the other robots can do really helped our team with the strategy”. Said Julian Zuñiga, Columbus School teacher, and mentor of CIP.

This was only the second year the Colombian team participated in the competition, and reached the semifinals, where they were defeated. Although the team didn’t pass to the Robotics World Cup or the finals, they won the spirit award and were recognized for their hard work in making sure participants were able to attend the event regard to financial resources.

“It’s something that is historical, it’s very very strange that a team after just their second year can reach to semi finals, in such a competitive regional which is South Florida”. Said Zuñiga

But the team wasn’t the only one chanting. During the week of the competition, the team got mentioned at a local newspaper, some of the locals around the area read the article and decided to take part in some of the action.

“We talked to some local people in the competition and they told us of how they heard about the team and wanted to see some Colombians get  success in an international competition. There were some Colombians, but also there where people from other latin countries,” Emiliano Mesa, Columbus School Junior and CIP team member, said.

Although some of the students didn’t have to do much with the robot, they were present and helping the team out in the pits, for they where the ones doing the scouting of the other Robots, to create a strategy for the next matches.

“All we did was talk to the other teams about there robots and take pictures with the robot and the other team mates, these was really helpful for the team, because we had an idea of what was the plan for the next match,”  Pablo Monsalve, Columbus School Junior, leader of the CIP marketing team, said.