YPSILANTI – A three team alliance of Bloomfield International Academy, Utica Schools and Romeo Engineering & Tech Center won the Michigan state title in FIRST Robotics April 13, earning a trip to the World Championships in St. Louis in late April.

The state?s top 64 teams from 11 district tournaments around the state the prior six weekends came together at the FIRST in Michigan State Championship at the Convocation Center on the campus of Eastern Michigan.

The runner-up alliance of Huron Valley Schools, Hopkins High and Grand Blanc High won the first of three matches by accumulating the second highest one-round score of the entire three-day tournament, but the champion alliance came back to take the last two matches and earn the state crown.

Headed for the national championships based on their performances at the state event, and at earlier events, are the following teams:

Team 469, Las Guerrillas, International Academy, Bloomfield Hills

Team 2054, Tech Vikes, Hopkins High School

Team 3539, Byting Bulldogs, Romeo Engineering & Technology Center

Team 67, Heroes Of Tomorrow, Huron Valley Schools

Team 1718, The Fighting Pi, Macomb Academy of Arts and Sciences, Armada

Team 33, the Killer Bees, Notre Dame Preparatory School, Auburn Hills

Team 1918, NC Gears, Newaygo County RESA, Fremont

Team 862, Lightning Robotics, Plymouth-Canton Schools

Team 245, Adambots, Rochester Adams and Stoney Creek High Schools

Team 2145, Hazmats, Lake Fenton High School

Team 2474, Excel, Niles

Team 3414, Hackbots, Farmington Public Schools

Team 2959, Robotarians, Coloma High School, Watervliet High School, Lake Michigan Catholic High School, Grace Christian High School, Michigan Lutheran High School, Eau Claire High School

Team 217, the Thunder Chickens, Utica Community Schools

Team 27, Team Rush, Clarkston High School

Team 3656, the Dreadbots, Dexter High School

Team 2000, Team Rock, Dorr

Team 3641, The Flying Toasters, South Lyon Schools

Team 2851, Crevolution, Utica Community Schools

Team 2612, Waterford Mott Destroyers, Waterford Mott High School

Team 2137, Torc, Oxford Community Schools

Team 70, More Martians, Goodrich High School

Team 68, Truck Town Thunder, Holly High School and Brandon High School

Team 2619, The Charge, Midland Public Schools

Team 314, The Megatron Oracles, Flint Carman-Ainsworth High School

Team 1684, Chimeras, Lapeer High Schools

Roughly 5,000 high high school students across the state are members of 206 FIRST teams that design and build robots to accomplish a specific task during a six-week ?build season? in January and February. Then, on Fridays and Saturdays throughout March, the students compete in 11 district events held around the state. The top 64 teams from these competitions qualify for the state championships.

Teams raise money to pay for their expenses in building the robot and create Web sites to build publicity and awareness ? meaning there?s room in FIRST for learning about media, public relations, nonprofit management, and much more than robotics engineering and construction.

During the round-robin preliminary portion of the competition, teams are assigned to three-team ?alliances? at random. Based on their records earned during this phase of the competition, teams were seeded from 1 to 64. After two days of seeding matches, the top eight seeded teams chose two alliance partners with which they stayed for the elimination phase of the contest ? quarterfinals, and, if they win, the semifinals and finals of the event.

In the elimination phase, like a sports tournament, the No. 1 seed starts the quarterfinals against the No. 8 seed, No. 2 plays No. 7, No. 3 plays No. 6 and No. 4 plays No. 5. The top four seeds all advanced to the semifinals, and the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds won the semifinals to advance to the finals. The finals were a bit of an upset, as the No. 2 seeded alliance beat No. 1 in a best-of-three competition that went all three matches.