DGF Robotics team competed in World Championships last weekend

GLYNDON, Minn. (Valley News Live) – From a small Minnesota town to the big city. Four Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton students had the opportunity to compete against kids from around the country and the globe last weekend.

Senior Louis Gaytan, sophomore Lorents Gaytan and 7th graders Cass Ahonen and Isaac Christopherson make up the Pun-ishers, a robotics team based at DGF High School. The group traveled to Houston last week to compete in the 2024 FIRST Championship, a four-day competition for students in grades 7-12.

“Three of us had actually never been on a plane, so it was our first time traveling,” said Louis. “It was a really great experience to go down and compete with the best.”

The team advanced to Houston after winning the Inspire Award at the North Dakota FTC State Championships in February. In Houston last weekend, the team received the third place Connect Award.

“The Connect Award is basically about how much mentors you get,” said Ahonen. “It basically shows how our mentors have helped through the years and how we got to this point.”

But how they got to this point wasn’t easy. The team said their mentor at the time stepped away from the team two weeks before the State competition. The Gaytan brothers had to step up to lead the team, spending 2000 hours of their own time teaching themselves.

“I stayed up quite a bit, like at 3 a.m. every night just trying to learn as much as I can,” Lorents said.

But between state and the competition in Houston last weekend, many members of the school community reached out to help the team, 30 to be exact. The team says those mentors have helped them in many ways to get to where they are now.

“During that time everyone from our area figured out so they were sending emails to us constantly and we were able to connect with a few people (at state),” Louis said.

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