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KOCHVILLE TOWNSHIP (WJRT) – (04/11/19) – Around 5,000 high school students on 160 teams are in Saginaw County trying to earn a state championship title.

They’re at Saginaw Valley State University for the FIRST in Michigan robotics state finals.

For the lead mentor of the Bullock Creek High School team, the university is home turf.

Jamie Forbes earned her teaching degree from SVSU, and played softball and lacrosse.

She planned to spend her after-school hours coaching softball, until she started working with the robotics team.

“Every single one of these kids is going to go on and be a professional. They’re going to run businesses, be innovators. They’re going to be the ones that are driving our future forward,” Forbes said.

A couple years into her work with the team, now known as BlitzCreek Robotics, Forbes decided these were the competitors she wanted to work with. “They make me want to be a better, better person and steward of our community,” she said.

Her Cardinal roots are helping on and off the competition floor.

“Oh by the way why don’t you come talk to this person, or let me show you this cool thing like the prototyping lab,” she said.

Co-Team Captain Gabby Adams said getting here, to Forbes’ home turf, was a victory all in itself. “Honestly I didn’t think we were going to be here because at our first competition we didn’t do so hot,” she said.

They went on to win a Midland tournament earning them a spot at the state championships.

Adams tells us the competition is about so much more than building, programming and operating a robot, and that begins with their mentors.

“She’s taught me how to say no to things and how to talk to people and how to present, how to show how passionate you are about things,” Adams said.

BlitzCreek and the other teams will know who wins the state championships on Saturday.

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