On Friday, March 6, the robotics class competed with their self-made robot at Butler County Community College. The six students that participated in the competition have been traveling from school to VECA since September to complete this bot.

“It’s a great feeling when you see something that we’ve worked so hard on to actually exist and be working. I love the team this year,” Junior Eric Eisenbrown said.

All of the participating classmates are juniors and seniors.

There are a lot of rules and regulations that the class has to follow in order to qualify for the competitions. One of these rules is that the robot must weigh in no more than 15 pounds. The class hit that limit perfectly with their bot.

The competition was held primarily to determine which schools qualified for the California University competition, which will be held on April 24 and 25. At the Butler competition, schools were able to work out the problems and make necessary decisions on how to improve their bot.

In total, 13 different schools competed. Nine of the schools competed with only one bot. Those included; Freedom, Beaver County CTC, Butler Intermediate HS, Butler Senior HS, Deer Lakes, Fox Chapel, Penns Major, Seneca Valley and Union. Out of these 13 schools, four competed with two bots. Those four schools that competed with two bots included Central Valley, Highlands, Penn Hills and Sharpsville.

“The competition went well; we identified some very important electronic issues that we were able to fix up for the finals,” Eisenbrown said.

The group had to wait until after the competition to fix their bot. They didn’t have have any of the required equipment to fix the electrical problems that they encountered during the competition. They were later able to fix the bot at VECA.

The class won their first two matches by default, due to issues that other schools had with their bots. The third and final round brought about the electrical problems that lost them the match. The group did not place in the top three, but did qualify for the finals in April.

“It’s likely my favorite class, next to Physics II,” Senior Jared Hartle said.

He has been with the robotics class for one year. Only three of the students have participated for both years that the program has been together. These students are Eisenbrown, Senior Josh Leasure and Junior Vinnie Rose.

The class continues to work on their bot and keep its gears running for April when they will all travel to CalU to compete in the final competition for the year.