Every year the robotics team makes it annual trip to Sedalia, MO to compete with their finished robot in attempt at moving up through the various levels of competition, and hopefully qualifying for Worlds, which is held in Texas and is the highest level of robotics competition. After an intense six weeks of building, their robot is now fully functional.

“I am confident we will make it to Worlds,” said Will Crow, senior. “We’re a good team and we made it last year.”

Competition is based off skill of the robot and team dynamic, which seems to be a strong trait in this years group. The robot must perform certain tasks and team members are even blindfolded while controlling the robot in certain stages of the competition in order to raise the stakes.

“It makes me a little nervous [being blindfolded] because it’s different than previous years and we won’t be able to see what we’re doing,” said Crow.

Despite these newfound challenges, the team’s hoping their hard work over the past six weeks and their dedication to the robot will pull them them through.

“It was a challenge building the robot and I didn’t always understand what to do but it looks good now,” said Brandon Hall, sophomore.

The team started out from scratch with nothing more than material and ideas and built off that to then make a prototype, which eventually becomes a fully functioning robot.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” said Emma Scharff, freshman. “If one person does something off or different we have to alter the whole design.”

This type of work may seem daunting to most, but for these robotics students it’s a fun hobby that brings them together with others.

“It’s a really great way to make friends,” said Scharff. “We’re like a dysfunctional family.”

The team will compete on Friday, Mar. 15 at the St. Louis Regional FIRST Robotics competition.