This past Saturday two of BRHS’s robotics teams qualified for the state championship, which was held at the Point Community Center in South Portland. The Bent Axles, comprised of Jayden Orne, Liam Jacobs, and Tyson French; and team Rocket, comprised of Thomas Babineau, Mylo McKinney, Mason Paquette, and Jackson Zehm joined the top 48 teams from around the state to compete at this year’s challenge, the Vex Robotics Competition High Stakes. The teams represented freshmen through seniors, and all competitors were new to robotics this season.

There are three main ways to qualify for the championship: winning a head-to-head qualifying event, winning certain judged awards, and based on a team’s skills score (which is simply your robot against the clock to score as many points as possible in both autonomous and driver controlled modes). This year both teams qualified based on their skills scores. With this year's state Championship earlier than past years, teams had less time between their last tournament and the championship to prepare, especially for The Bent Axles who received their invite four days before the championship.

At the event, the Bent Axles battled a few mechanical breakdowns with their robot that limited their success on the field. The team, represented that day by Jayden and Liam, stayed focused and was able to fix problems as the day went on. Despite a performance that was not as strong as the team would have liked, making it to states as a first year team is an accomplishment and we are proud of the determination they showed throughout the day.

Team Rocket set the goal of making it into the elimination round with a rank high enough to choose their partner, and they achieved that with room to spare, finishing the qualifying matches ranked 10th of the 48 teams, with the top 16 in a position to pick their partner. They chose to team up with Bangor High School’s team Gadget Gang and went into the round of 16 with high hopes. In a match where less than an inch was the difference between winning (and moving on) or losing, the team was defeated by an alliance from Searsport Middle/High and Old Town High School. The team took it in stride, and both team and coaches were very satisfied with that performance for a first year team.

The Vex Robotics Competition is a student-centered competition that allows students to design, build, and program unique robots to play a head-to-head game in a team environment. Students learn valuable technical skills alongside interpersonal skills, problem solving, and project management. The program is very popular in the US, with nearly 5,000 teams, about 60 of which are here in Maine.