Latest news with #WallaceState
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
INTERVIEW: No. 6 Odessa looks to bring home the first national championship since 1994
YUMA, Arizona (KMID/KPEJ) – No. 6 Odessa defeated No. 11 Wallace State – Hanceville 6-2 in their first game of the NJCAA Division 1 World Series. Now, the Lady Wranglers prepare for another tough game. We talked with head coach Doug Eastman about what it's like playing in the World Series. You can hear his response and see information about their upcoming game in the video above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
OC softball is headed to the World Series for the 5th straight season
ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – The Odessa College Lady Wranglers are headed to the NJCAA Division 1 World Series for the fifth straight year. OC got the 6-seed and will face the 11-seed Wallace State – Hanceville on Monday at 6:45 p.m. CST in Yuma, Arizona. In the latest rankings poll on May 5th, Odessa was ranked seventh, and Wallace State was ranked ninth. The Lady Wranglers finished the regular season at 46-6, falling in the Southwest District A Championship to Grayson. The Lady Lions finished their regular season at 47-13. The winner of Odessa/Wallace State will face the winner of No. 3 Northwest Florida State College vs. No. 14 Southern Union State/No. 19 Arizona Western. The NJCAA Division 1 World Series is a double-elimination tournament. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Hartselle hosting massive robotics event
Jan. 31—Hartselle is hosting robotics competitions at its intermediate and junior high schools Saturday that have 44 teams from all over the state competing to earn a spot at the state robotics championship. Teams will start arriving at 8 a.m. for the Hartselle Tigers Tournament VEX IQ Robotics Competition. The tournament starts about 9:30 and ends with an awards ceremony about 4 p.m. Admission is free. "We're going to have tons of food trucks and free admission, so anyone who just wants to just come by and see what it's about can do so," said Hartselle Intermediate School robotics and computer science teacher Cheyenne Moses. "We're just really excited to have this many kids here who love robotics," she said. This year, everyone has to design and build a robot that can pick up a ball and throw it through goals, Moses said. Teams that win or receive what is called the excellence award — which means they do well in their interviews, their notebook, their skills and the tournament — get to go on to the state tournament. Middle school teams that make it to state will compete Feb. 28-March 1 in Auburn. Elementary school teams that make it to state will compete at Wallace State in Hanceville March 7-8. If they win at state, they will get to compete at Worlds in Dallas, Texas. "I'm very proud of them," Moses said of her classes. "They have accomplished a lot this year." Teams are randomly paired up with other teams during the tournament. The teams play several matches to figure out who is on top, and those teams go to the finals to compete to be the winner. Students have to interview with judges, and they also have to exhibit skills, including driving their robot by themselves and programming it to do the task. All the schools are involved in robotics, including the three elementary schools. Junior high and high school students play a more advanced version of the game, Moses said. Hartselle Intermediate School has a robotics program with eight teams. These students spend the whole year designing and documenting everything they do and build. It includes notebooks hundreds of pages long with pictures, she said. The kids put in a lot of time, she said. "My sixth grade teams spend an hour a day with me, so five hours a week," Moses said. "My fifth grade team spends two 25 minutes classes periods with me and usually stays after school and hour and half two to three days a week." She saw instant growth once she came on board. "Just for the four fifth grade teams we had more than 50 applicants," she said. "Almost immediately all the kids were interested and wanted to be included." She started robotics the past two years at junior high school and then they called her to bring computer science and robotics to the intermediate school. This is her first full year at intermediate school, and she has 32 kids, she said. She estimates there are 100 students in all of the robotics classes from elementary to high school. Teamwork is important in robotics. "They work with another team to get as many points as possible using the robots they have designed," Moses said. "They also have to turn their notebooks in to the judges to score. And they have to have interviews with the judges." Autonomy is also important. "They have to do this all by themselves," Moses said. "I'm not allowed to help them in the interviews. I'm not allowed to notebook for them, and I don't even help build their robots. I can suggest stuff, but they have to have all the ideas and build all of it themselves. If something breaks at the competition, they are responsible for fixing it all themselves. So, they really have to learn the engineering design process." She said a lot of the robotics kids go into the engineering academies at the high school level, but the problem-solving skills they learn helps them in any direction they go. Cadence O'Neill, 12, a sixth grader at the school, said she started robotics in the fourth grade. "From then I just kind of moved up," she said. "That was our first year and they just let everybody try out. Only two fourth graders made the team — me and Landon Weeks — and the rest were third graders." When she isn't programming a robot, she is a skilled dancer. She performs jazz, ballet, acrobatic and contemporary dance. "I love dancing, but it is more of an individual pursuit," she said. "What I like about robotics is the focus on teamwork." She doesn't consider dance competitive, and she has a bit of a competitive streak she wants to fulfill, she said. "I like the sportsmanship a lot, how we work as a team because dance is more of a one-person thing," she said. O'Neill encourages others to join robotics if they are on the fence. "They should; it's a great thing for a school to start doing robotics because it lets kids do something other than what they normally do," she said. "Plus, it's not like other sports where it's your team and your team only, you have to work with other teams. You want them to do good because if they do good, then you also do good." Landon Weeks, 12, a sixth grader, also loves robotics. "It teaches teamwork, time management and how to be respectful and kind," he said. "It teaches you how to accomplish a task with others. It's really like no other program. "I just really like how it is operated, and I think it's a lot of fun building robots," Weeks said. "I'm so blessed to be able to do this in Hartselle and go to these competitions with a robot we built." — or 256-340-2361
