BOILER VISION
BUILT ON TRADITION, PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
BBCHS Class of 2017 Graduation on May 19, 2017
Please join us in congratulating the Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School Class of 2017! Friday, May 19, seniors walked across the stage and completed their high school career with a handshake from Principal, Dr. Brian Wright. The commencement ceremony was held at Centennial Chapel on the Olivet Nazarene University campus. The 2017 graduates listened to speeches by Madeline Ellexson, Bridgette Macander (read by Ravina Vasanwala), and Dr. Wakeley. After graduates received their diplomas, Blake Bradley, winner of Principal's Most Inspirational Award, and Halle Schweizer, winner of Principal's Leadership Award, led their class in the moving of the tassel the commencement recessional.
Graduates will be contacted by GradImages regarding their graduation picture via email by May 30th. Order forms will be available for the 2017 Graduation ceremony DVD purchases on bbchs.org, the main office, and the following link.
BBCHS Ironclad Competes in the Robotics World Championship!
Ironclad capped off another stellar season with an amazing run at the World Championships in St. Louis. Our season started with a bang when we earned the 2nd Seed Alliance Captain slot for the playoffs at the Central Illinois Regional in Peoria. We narrowly lost to the 1st seed alliance in the Final round of the playoffs but still qualified to compete at the World Championships because teams on the winning alliance had already qualified! Moving on to the Midwest Regional, we played at the University of Illinois Chicago against a field of 52 teams where we ended up getting picked to be the 3rd robot in the 1st seed alliance. We once again advanced through the playoff rounds by being one of the best defense playing robot at the tournament. Our alliance paid a stiff price for all the hits we took (and delivered) during those rounds when our robot died during the Final rounds of the tournament because of some broken wires, ultimately losing to the number 2 alliance. We were thrilled to win the Industrial Safety Award sponsored by Underwriters Laboratory for our consistent work developing and implementing our safety plan (sponsored by Nucor).
After shipping Athena, our competition robot, to St. Louis to await our arrival on April 26, Ironclad prepared for their 2nd trip to Worlds in as many years. The St. Louis World Championship consists of 400+ teams from around the world divided onto 6 competition fields in one NFL-sized stadium. Each field is named after a famous figure in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math. We played 3-on-3 matches on the Archimedes field with 65 other teams. Match assignments are randomized to help encourage Coopertition. A team you play with on one match may be your opponent on another. Teams help each other be the best they can be. Every team on Archimedes had 10 Qualification matches where Ranking Points are earned as the result of winning (+2), or getting at least 40 kiloPascals (whiffle balls) of pressure in the boiler (+1), or getting all 4 rotors on the airship spinning by delivering and installing giant plastic gears to the airship (+1). At the end of Qualifications, the 8 teams with the highest ranking points select the playoff alliances.
Field coached by Ms. Polsley (BBCHS Spanish teacher) through the qualification rounds, by the end of Friday night, Ironclad found itself the 8th ranked team, guaranteeing that we would be Playoff Captains, selecting an alliance of teams that our Scouting team had identified as the needed ingredients to advance through the playoffs and hopefully win Archimedes and advance to the vaunted Einstein field of champions. Our scouting team chose an outstanding alliance and our first playoff match was a 20 point victory over the #2 Seed alliance. In the second playoff match, we leapt out in front by earning 40 bonus points by activating 2 rotors in the autonomous 15 second period! This extremely difficult task can only be accomplished if all three robots quickly deliver gears to the airship and the two pilots pull them up and install them in two different locations. All in under 15 seconds. With just under a minute left in the match, one of our 3 robots died on the field and we played 2 against 3 for 30 seconds while it restarted. Losing that match by 5 points forced us into the tiebreaker round. We once again achieved the two-rotor autonomous and played and aggressive match, scoring our personal best high score of 497 points. However, the opposing alliance was able to score a bit more and we lost by 14 points, getting knocked out at the Quarter Finals.
An extremely satisfying season for a 2nd year with 50+ team members! We built a robot that played the game and strategy that we chose, it functioned nearly perfectly with very few lost matches due to mechanical failure. Our overall record was 30 wins, 15 losses, and 1 tie. We played and against some of the best teams in the country, we made it into playoffs in every competition we attended this year, were playoff captains twice, advanced to the World Championships and into the playoff rounds. We earned two sets of Finalist medals and the Underwriters Laboratory Industrial Safety Awards. BBCHS has a lot to be proud of with our robotics team!
Top 10% Dinner
Students at Work - Employer Appreciation Dinner
Awards went to the following:
Most Improved
Terrel Troupe - BBCHS Cafeteria
Patrick Cook - Levasseur
Morgan Patchett - Bradley East Elementary
Positive Attitude
Jacob Haskell - BBCHS Library
Katelyn Baker - Alan Shepard
Cole Prince - Liberty
Worker of the Year
Katlein Noble - ONU Bakery
Lyle Harvill - Jewel Osco
Ryan Gerritsen - BBCHS SAO
Boss of the Year
BBCHS Counseling Office
Jewel Osco
Joan Whitley – ONU Red Room
Appreciation Award
Debbie Brumitt – BBCHS
Rhonda Arthur – BBCHS
Lifetime Achievement
Michelle Barre – Children’s Corner
Pictures by Christine Hosek