District 214’s annual battle bots tournament, Robot Rumble, happened this past Friday and Saturday, February 17th and 18th. Rolling Meadows Robot Rumble is sponsored by Mr. Genovese and Mr. Jacoby, and built three robots across 23 kids. The goal of the D214 robot rumble is always to be the last bot standing. It includes both an official bracketed set of one-on-one matches and a post-match all-out brawl. 

Meadows was represented by the Billy Bot, a pusher robot whose main goal was to push the opposing robot into the weapon on the playing field, Perseus, which had a horizontal spinning weapon, and Gary, which had a vertical spinning weapon. 

Senior Jacob Painter, driver of Gary, said “It was fun, I personally had more fun with the competition because it was higher stakes and I got to drive for it but another team member drove for the (overall) rumble. But the rumbles are fun because they just throw a bunch of bots together so there’s more destruction.”

“We would’ve won if the batteries didn’t fail. The connections from the wire to the battery itself got disconnected after the robot got launched up, on multiple sets of batteries,” said junior Faiz Mohammad from the Perseus bot, which earned a top 5 slot in the tournament. Janktality from Conant won the whole competition and Prospect’s Spatula came in second place.

Senior Lorelei Osterlund wasn’t on any of the Meadows teams, but still watched the rumble to support her friends in it. “There was one robot that absolutely decimated its opponent. It was very cool. Also the Spatula was fun to watch.”

Congratulations to the following students for their hard work on each robot:

Perseus: Ethan S. (Driver), Peter K., Bevin G., Alex G., Jensen S., Kaitlyn D., Faiz M., Richie K.

Gary: Jacob P. (Driver), Sam M., Makes P., Ivan A., Johanna B., Felix S., Joey S., Mason S.

Billy Bot (swapped drivers each match): Rayaan A., Daniel D., Rishi P., Alex R., Isaiah V., Tirth P., Eashan N.