The Seymour Middle School Sixth Grade Center’s Team 3113C earned the Judges Award and Team 3113E made the finals in a robotics tournament Saturday at Immanuel Lutheran School in Seymour.

Team 3113C consists of Noble Hare and Connor Wilson. Hare’s partner couldn’t make the tournament, so coach Amy Jo Miller moved Lillian Westmoreland off of her team to be a fill-in on 3113C.

“A grand series of events occurred this day that just made this award even more special for Team 3113,” Miller said. “You see, Lillian is so protective of her robot on Team 3113E. She had a hard time leaving her team, but she is an amazing team player and will do what it takes for the better good.”

That left Team 3113E, Colten Pelfrey and Ranfari Hernandez, in charge. Miller said it started out rough when their robot went flying off of the table and crashing to the ground.

“Everyone stared for a second inquisitively about how it happened,” she said. “The controller was with a teammate about 10 feet away unbeknownst to them of this occurrence.”

All of a sudden, the Seymour Middle School and Sixth Grade Center teams gathered around, and Westmoreland was in there rebuilding the robot.

“It felt like less than 10 minutes and it was up and running,” Miller said. “And then a string of good luck. We all starting thinking about Ranfari and his birthday luck. Could that really be?”

Team 3113E made it to the finals.

“Wow! We are so proud of their skill, professionalism and working with their alliances,” Miller said. “They ranked eighth place in the finals. Ranfari and Colten did great.”

During the day, judges will walk around and interview the teams. The tend to observe how the teams behave, their attitudes and what they are doing on their downtime. The judges watch everything, Miller said.

“Judges consider a number of possible criteria for this award, such as team displays of special attributes, exemplary effort and perseverance at the event or team accomplishments or endeavors throughout the season that may not fit under existing awards but are nonetheless deserving of special recognition,” she said.

They wound up choosing Team 3113C for the award.

“I am guessing they watched how Noble was helping others, working on his bot and cared so much about the game. I think they noticed how Lillian kept an eye on both teams, and she even built an additional bot with downtime,” Miller said. “We are so proud of Team 3113C. A lot had to take place for this award to be earned.”

Also Saturday, Seymour Middle School’s Team 3138A, consisting of Leo Holle, Gavin Burnside and Jaxon Vires (already state qualified), was paired up in the finals with Team 3138C (hoping to be invited to state), which consists of Micah Yee, Jacob Mikel and Kirby Tormoehlen.

Miller said she was proud they got to be an alliance together and ranked fourth at the tournament.

“These teams show top-notch ingenuity,” she said. “Both of their bots are different and unique than others that are cookie cutter.”