The robotics team swept their way into the semifinals in the FIRST Robotics Greater Kansas City Regional at Hale Arena on March 3.The team competed against 64 other teams from the south central states.

According to team sponsor Charleen Mankameyer, their biggest competitor was Smithville High School’s Smithville Warriors Advancing Technology (SWAT) team.

“We spent six weeks to prepare. For five weeks, we started to build the actual robot,” co-captain Preston Rabe said. “Then, the last couple of days, we sent it to programmers to fix any bugs. We were supposed to have a full week to practice, but we ran out of time.”

The robots had to put an eight-inch Styrofoam basketball into three different goals. The highest goal would give the team three points, the middle goal two points and the lowest one point. The robots also had to balance on and cross one of three bridges in the center of the field. Balancing and crossing the bridge successfully gave the team a series of points.

“I was afraid wasn’t good enough. I was worried it wasn’t accurate enough to shoot, but it was great,” freshman Courtney Hedrick said.

“The robots played basketball, and we got all the way to semifinals,” freshman Luke Hansen said.

The team was defeated in the semifinals, finishing in sixth place.

“We can review all the failures and improve on them,” Mankameyer said.

Story by J-1 class