Recently the Robotics team placed second in the state competition held at Vandegrift High School. During the first scrimmage, the team received 19 out of the available 25 points in the first round. Though, because of their robot’s overall skillfulness and programming, one of the top four teams allied with them for the final round allowing them to pull ahead to second place.

“We were excited when we got selected as an ally by one of the top four teams,” senior Sahil Mulji said. “But [we were] disappointed that we didn’t get first place.”

The robot was programmed to move with tank controls and had to be driven through the football field trying to collect the maximum amount of points. The amount of points collected determined the score that the team received and the place that they earned in the competition.

“We were stressed during the competition when our robot malfunctioned,” Mulji said. “I thought we were for sure done, and was wondering how we could fix it during the short time outs, but it pulled through and finished the competition.”

“We did much better this year because of our communication with our team and with some of the other teams,” Mulji said. “Now we have 17 members instead of only six.”

After receiving second place at the state competition, the robotics team advanced to the competition at Connally High School on Saturday, Jan. 16 which will determine if the team will advance to regionals, competing against teams across the nation. Even if the robotics team doesn’t qualify in the competition at Connally, they will have another chance to advance to regionals in the next qualifying competition.