WORLD-CLASS EFFORT — The Brooke Middle School Robotics B Team qualified for the VEX Robotics World Championship while other teams from the school placed second and sixth, respectively at the West Virginia VEX IQ Elementary and Middle School State Championship. Representing the school were, from left, front: Brayden Racicot, Faith Farrell, Brayden Farrell, Ian Robinson and Chase Felouzis; middle: Jerri Wilson, Lucas Neel, Christian Packer, Austin Robinson, Tyler Hores and Isaac Lanigan; and back: Jeg Hilt, Sam Mockbee and Ben McVicker. -- Contributed

WELLSBURG — Students from Brooke Middle School and Brooke High School demonstrated their ingenuity and ability to work as a team at state robotics competitions in which two teams from the schools qualified for world championships.

A team from the high school comprised of Gage Keener, Nathan Anderson, Riley McAllister, Gage Conant and Greg Thorfinnson placed second in the fourth annual West Virginia VEX University Qualifier.

And a team comprised of Chase Felouzis, Lucas Neel, Sam Mockbee, Jeg Hilt and Christian Packer received the Excellence Award, the highest honor presented at the West Virginia VEX IQ Elementary and Middle School State Championship.

The two events were held at Fairmont State University over one weekend in March. The team’s victories qualified them for the VEX Robotics World Championship that was set to be held in Louisville, Ky. this month but canceled because of the pandemic.

The event was expected to involve nearly 1 million students from various nations, including China.

“It’s a bummer we didn’t get to go. It was such a great event two years ago,” said Keith Huntzinger, the middle school’s robotics coach, who led a team from the former Follansbee Middle School to the world competition in 2018.

But he and Chris Mockbee, coach for the high school’s teams, said they are quite pleased with their students’ performance at the state level.

“I’m super proud of them,” said Mockbee, who noted Keener, Anderson, McAllister, Conant and Thorfinnson called themselves The Beserkers, inspired by Viking cartoon characters; and were among 50 teams, including three others from the high school, competing against each other.

Mockbee said the team worked its away up, from last in the round-robin elimination tournament to the semifinals and finals.

“It was a Cinderella story,” he said.

Mockbee said robots designed, built and programmed by the students were charged with the task of stacking a series of cubes into tall towers with points awarded for the tallest towers with the most cubes of the same color.

Huntzinger said while designing, building and programming their robots for the middle school competition, students must document their efforts in a notebook, and any modification to the robot should be noted.

It was for their documentation that Felouzis, Neel, Mockbee, Hilt and Packer — dubbed the Brooke Middle B Team — received the Excellence Award.

“That group had a really good engineering notebook. They worked very hard on it,” said Huntzinger, who noted the team receiving the award and the one that places first are the only two to advance from the state level to the world competition.

He said all four Brooke Middle School teams worked very hard this year.

Among 31 teams competing, the school’s A Team –comprised of Austin Robinson, Ian Robinson and Ben McVicker– placed second in the teamwork challenge segment of the competition, missing first place by only three points.

Huntzinger said in the teamwork challenge, two teams from different schools are randomly paired. At the world competition, interpreters aid teams who speak different languages.

At the state competition a team from St. Joseph Middle School of Huntington worked with the A Team to win second place.

And Brooke Middle’s D Team –comprised of Jerri Wilson, Isaac Lanigan, Faith Farrell and Brayden Racicot — placed sixth in the teamwork challenge.

While they did not qualify for the teamwork challenge, Brayden Farrell, Tyler Hores and Paul Higgins of the C Team competed with the other teams at regional events to get to the state competition.

Over the years various businesses and organizations, including Chevron and the Claude W. Bennedum Foundation, have supported Brooke County Schools’ robotics teams.

This year Wheeling-Nippon Steel Inc., formerly Wheeling-Nisshin Inc., covered the teams’ cost for transportation to the state event.

(Scott can be contacted at wscott@heraldstaronline.com.)