Pictured above are C-S PantherBot members Blake Morrison, Jaxson Damm, Coach Chad Schau, Aiden Klusman, and Ryan Klusman at the Columbia Central High School District competition in Brooklyn.
(Photo courtesy of Kristin Wykoski)
By Bruce Rolfe
The Climax-Scotts PantherBots continued to cut an impressive path in its first year of competition March 21 and 22 at Columbia Central High School in Brooklyn by qualifying for the FRC State Championship event at Saginaw Valley State University April 16-18.
The local robotics team finished 6th overall at the Brooklyn competition and won four separate team awards - Best Rookie Team, Towering Talent Award, “Recently Unearthed” Award for Best Rookie Team at the 2026 Jackson at Columbia District Event, and the Time Circuit Award.
The PantherBots were coming off a fourth place finish and Rookie All Star Award March 6 and 7 at the Battle Creek Lakeview District competition.
The points the PantherBots secured at the two district events qualified C-S for the FRC State Championship at SVSU.
The PantherBots, made up of 15 C-S students in grades 6th through 11th, are guided by coach Chad Schau, and assisted by Adam Audette.
The C-S robotics team were joined by two other schools and their robots as part of a three-team alliance competing against another three-team alliance from other schools at the Columbia Central District event.
The Climax-Scotts PantherBots continued to cut an impressive path in its first year of competition March 21 and 22 at Columbia Central High School in Brooklyn by qualifying for the FRC State Championship event at Saginaw Valley State University April 16-18.
The local robotics team finished 6th overall at the Brooklyn competition and won four separate team awards - Best Rookie Team, Towering Talent Award, “Recently Unearthed” Award for Best Rookie Team at the 2026 Jackson at Columbia District Event, and the Time Circuit Award.
The PantherBots were coming off a fourth place finish and Rookie All Star Award March 6 and 7 at the Battle Creek Lakeview District competition.
The points the PantherBots secured at the two district events qualified C-S for the FRC State Championship at SVSU.
The PantherBots, made up of 15 C-S students in grades 6th through 11th, are guided by coach Chad Schau, and assisted by Adam Audette.
The C-S robotics team were joined by two other schools and their robots as part of a three-team alliance competing against another three-team alliance from other schools at the Columbia Central District event.
Pictured at the Columbia Central High School District competition are (left to right) Gavin Dunn, Edward Valentine, Jaxon Marlowe, Ryne Sattler and, Nathaniel Valentine.
(Photo courtesy of Kristin Wykoski)
The PantherBots were the captain of the 7th Alliance and picked team 7501 the Golden Gears (Columbia Central) and Team 862 Lightning Robotics (Canton High School & Salem High School & Plymouth High School).
The PantherBots finished the qualifying rounds as the 10th seed out of 37 teams.
The local robotics team lost a playoff match, won its next two matches and lost its 4th playoff match, eliminating the team from the championship round. That gave the PantherBots a 6th place finish overall.
The PantherBots are currently the highest ranked rookie team in the entire state and ranked 28th overall out of 530 teams in the FIRST in Michigan District (FIM).
The C-S PantherBots designed, programmed and built an industrial sized robot to compete.
At each competition, the objective is to have the robot deposit as many balls (called fuel) into a hopper (called a hub) as possible to score points, climb pull up bars and perform other tasks in a set amount of time to secure more points.
The team can also secure points by having members successfully throw balls (fuel) into the hub.
Another part of the competition is autonomous. The team wrote code using java script, making the robots autonomous. The coding the group wrote instructs the robot to perform different maneuvers that score points. Once the team hits go, the robot does the rest of the work and hopefully completes each task to secure more points.
Teams then return to climb their tower. A robot that can climb to level 1 will earn 10 points. A robot that can climb to level 2 will earn 20 points and a robot that can climb to level 3 will earn 30 points.
Schau said the PantherBots had the only robot to perform the climb for the whole competition.
The four awards the Climax-Scotts PantherBots earned at the Columbia Central High School District event.
(Photo courtesy of Chad Schau)
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