The middle school VEX Robotics team, Whirlwind (pictured left to right: Aubrey Steelman, Lucy Hoogstra, Ben Becker, & Bella Bouman) captured the State title on Friday, February 25 and qualified for Worlds! The middle school VEX Robotics program has 17 students who are placed on four teams. Remarkably, all four teams qualified for the State of Illinois Junior High tournament because of their skills and success in tournaments. On Friday, the Timothy teams competed in a qualification tournament by being paired randomly with other teams to form a two team alliance. After ranking the teams based on qualifications, the teams chose alliances to compete in an elimination tournament. All four Timothy Christian teams competed in the Semifinals. 4454W, Whirlwind, formed an alliance with a team from Mundelein and won their semifinal match against an alliance of two Timothy Christian teams. In the finals, they faced the top ranked alliance in a best of 2 out of 3 match. After winning the first and losing the second match, they were able to win the third by driving their robot up an incline with two targets and balancing. As the State Champions Whirlwind has qualified for the Worlds competition in May.