For the second time since the club’s reboot three years ago, a Powell Middle School robotics team will be heading to an international competition.

Kate Gunn, a club member who will be accompanying the qualifying team to Florida,  is most excited to see how they compete at the national level. She said her understanding is that the course will change and teams have to build a new bot overnight. 

Powell’s qualifying team, the Powell Paradoxes, will be heading to the Florida Sunshine Invitational in Daytona Beach, Florida, June 24-28 where they will be competing against 96 teams, about half of which are international.

After a third place finish at the 2024 robotics competition in Casper this past December, the team, made up of Jaxson Bear, Carter Kruger, Jade Miller, Colson Sherman and Jasper Taylor with addition of Gunn, had the opportunity to choose an invitational competition to attend. The Powell Paradoxes placed in three separate categories at state; first place in Robot Performance, second place in Innovation Project and a third place Champions Award. Fellow team We Don’t Byte also performed well, earning the Upcoming Rising Star Award. 

At the middle school level the first place winner of the competition heads to nationals to compete with other first place teams in Houston, Texas, while second and third place get their pick of invitational competitions that are multinational, explained Leon Miller, the team’s coach. 

Originally the Powell Paradoxes had two options but after the second place team dropped out they had three options to choose from, team member Colson Sherman said.

Miller, who made it to state with the Paradoxes last year, is excited to go to an invitational like her brother did two years ago.

“There’ll be teams from all over there, and it’s really, like, really fun to go around and collect stuff from each of their stands,” she said. “Each of them have little stands that they set up and they usually put like souvenirs on them, like we have little buttons you have, and it’s really fun to collect them all.”

Souvenirs aside, Miller is also excited to compete in Florida, as it will be the Paradoxes’ first time facing a team outside of Wyoming.

“I feel like that’d be really interesting,” she said.

To further set the invitational apart from state, the structure is different. 

Like state, the first half of the competition will include a speech portion, a core value portion and an actual competition, Sherman explained, but the second half of the invitational involves teaming up with another team to complete a special challenge. 

“We’re just trying to refine our knowledge on the coding, so when it comes to the time we could share that with the other teams we’re paired up with,” Taylor said.

Park County School District 1 will be paying for the team’s registration and flights, but the team still has some fundraising to do to cover lodging, transportation in Daytona and activities.

“We want to go to the beach, maybe go to Disney World,” Gunn said. 

If fundraising goes well the team hopes to visit the beach, Kennedy Space Center and an amusement park.

Donations can be made to Robotics Team 7177 through the middle school or through a pledge drive at app.99pledges.com/fund/Paradoxes but the club has a few other fundraising efforts cooking. The students are currently selling Butter Braids through Feb. 24. The pastries can be purchased by visiting store.myfundraisingplace.com/1c223dcd-aef6-472d-946f-71a1b763bba1. Additionally the club will be running school concessions at the school dance Feb. 21, the basketball tournament March 1 and a track meet in April. The club will also hold bake sales, Feb. 14 at Blair’s from 1-6 p.m. and during the spring parent teacher conferences from 4-6 p.m. March 3-4 with other dates in the works.

Finally, there will be a ball drop fundraiser that begins Feb. 24 with the event taking place on St. Patrick’s Day in the Powell Middle gym and raffle tickets will be on sale beginning March 17.