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

Seven students of the Columbus School, Pablo Monsalve, Emiliano Mesa, Camilo Giraldo, Nicolas Calle, Sara Gomez, Agustin Jaramillo, and Tomas Echeverri, took part in the 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