6 high school teams heading to robotics world championship
Six Hawaii high schools are advancing to a world championship robotics tournament in St. Louis this month.
The For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology in Hawaii Robotics Regional Competition brought nearly 1,000 students from 39 high schools around the world to Stan Sheriff Center to compete with their robots in a basketball-like game called Aerial Assist held March 28-29.
McKinley High School came in first place after taking last year off from the competition. Waialua High School placed second and Kamehameha School placed third. Waialua also placed in last month’s Dallas regional and Northern Lights regional in Minnesota.
According to the Friends of Hawaii Robotics Facebook page, Maui High School and Kealakehe High School also qualified for the world championship. Kalani High School secured a spot by winning the FIRST Alamo regional in San Antonio.
Teams had six weeks to build a robot from a kit of parts that came without instructions.
The FIRST world championship will take place April 23-26.
2 injured when truck hits wall
Two Kauai men were hospitalized after a pickup truck crashed into a rock wall on Lawai Beach Road in Koloa late Thursday night.
According to police, a Nissan pickup truck was heading east shortly before midnight when the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and struck the rock wall fronting 4800 Lawai Beach Road.
The 19-year-old driver and his passenger, also age 19, both of Koloa, sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were transported by medics to Wilcox Hospital.
Lawai Beach Road was closed in both directions for roughly four hours while traffic safety investigators conducted an investigation.
Officer’s baby is born in his car
KAILUA-KONA » A police officer on Hawaii island delivered his own baby in his patrol car on the side of a highway.
Kona police officer Mario Ochoa was driving his wife, Ryan, to the hospital Tuesday morning when she said the baby was coming.
Hawaii News Now said Ochoa told his wife to try to hold on, but they were 10 miles from the hospital, so the officer pulled over along Highway 190 in Waimea.
Ochoa said everything happened quickly, but he had enough time to put gloves on before his daughter, Marcella, was born on the passenger seat of his squad car. The couple then waited for an ambulance.
Ochoa said his wife was in labor for 30 hours with their first child, Ronan, so the couple thought they had more time make it to the hospital before the baby’s arrival.
