Robotics team wins state

On February 4 and 13, Bobcat Robotics went to Bozeman, Mont. and Casper for their Robotics Tournaments. Both teams did well in the tournaments and even won State Robotics.

In Robotics, students have to make a robot while working together. They have to make sure the robots are 18 by 18 by 18 inches to be qualified and have to go through a bunch of tasks to gain points. The more points they have, the higher their rank is. During the tournaments, teams get paired with each other and have to gain the most points in each round. By using gracious professionalism and teamwork, people rank up and get trophies for their achievements.

On Saturday Feb. 4, the Robotics club had its first tournament. The two teams, Aluminati and Fist Full of Axles went against almost 50 teams all around Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Aluminati didn't do so well and got the second to last rank while Fist Full of Axles got 26th. There were a few complications during this tournament which made it stressful and intense. Aluminati almost got disqualified when they went over the size limit and also had problems with the robot's arm when it wouldn't work properly. Fist Full of Axles also had problems with their robot's arm when the gears kept falling off. Not the best these teams have done, but there was a lot of progress happening.

February 13 was the last tournament of the season and the teams both did really well with Aluminati getting ranked 17th and Fist Full of Axles getting ranked 28th. Right before finals, team ~*! (Sqiggle Splat Bang) chose two teams to be allies during the final rounds. One team was the Robo-Panthers from Powell and the other was Aluminati from Thermopolis. The teams won with a 64 to 230 score and Aluminati went home a winning team. Fist Full of Axles actually has the chance to go to Ogden for regionals. Josh Canfield says, "The other team's number is in the 10,000's, which gives us a better chance of winning since they only had one to two years of experience."

There has been a lot of work with Bobcat Robotics and because of that, not only did one team win state, but now another has a chance to win regionals and make their town proud.