Saturday, Jan. 6 members of the BRHS Advanced Robotics and Applied Physics class traveled to Bangor for their second Vex Robotics Competition of the season. Team 6249C, the Mug Mafia, was there in full force with Afton Warren-Burden, Kolton Campbell, and Alexzander Blake, while Team 6249A, Anything But Chad, was represented by John Pray who was assisted by past Robotics team member Matthias Fanslau.

The tournament started off strong for The Mug Mafia with 3 wins in a row putting them at 3rd place among the 32 teams, before struggling in the next 4 matches and ending the qualifying rounds 3 and 4 and in 23 place. After finishing the previous event in 3rd overall, this was not the result the team was looking for. Thankfully, another team recognized their potential and selected them as their alliance partner in the third (of 16) rounds. The team was then able to
advance all the way to the finals before losing to an alliance made up of two John Bapst teams. For Anything but Chad, it was John’s first competition and he struggled a bit at first to match the aggressive play of some of the other teams. Anything but Chad was 0 and 3 when they decided to have 2 year Robotics veteran Matthias Fanslau take the controls for a match. He secured their first win, which turned the day around for the team. The duo was able to work together and keep that momentum going, winning 3 of their next 4 matches, finishing the qualifying rounds with a 3-4 record and the 21st seed amongst the 32 teams.

The duo advanced to the first elimination bracket where they were up against BRHS team Mug Mafia who eliminated them. BRHS will compete again Feb. 3 in Monmouth ahead of the state championship on March 9 in South Portland at the Point Community Center. Currently, the Mug Mafia has qualified for states, and we hope to see more teams qualify at our next event.

For more information about the Vex Robotics Competition, or this year's challenge (Over Under) please visit vexRobotics.com/over-under-manual. To see some of the matches played by our teams and others from Maine, please check out the Robotics Institute of Maine (RIM) Youtube page for past recordings and future livestreams.