On Saturday, Feb. 25 two robotics teams from Boothbay Region High School competed in the Maine State Championship Vex Robotics Competition. The competition is comprised of the top finishing teams from all over the state, representing the best of all the school teams in Maine. BRHS teams The Mug Mafia, made up of Kolton Campbell and Afton Warren-Burdin, and The Fast Fury, comprised of Matthias Fanslau and Everett Howard made the trip to The Point Community Center in South Portland to compete with the 48 best teams from around the state. Fanslau competed with different teammates last year, while the other members are new this season.

The state championship is an event that teams must qualify for throughout the season. Fanslau and Howard qualified at their first tournament of the season by placing second among the 32 teams in attendance. Warren-Burdin and Campbell qualified based on their skills score, which is a timed trial of programming and driver-based skills.

At the event, each team had seven qualifying matches, which were played head-to-head, 2 vs 2. Each match has a 15-second autonomous period that robots must be pre-programmed for, and a 1:45-second portion that is controlled by a driver with a controller. At the end of those matches, the teams are ranked and the top 16 become captains, picking an alliance partner to go into the elimination rounds with them. Therefore, 32 of the 48 teams move on to a traditional single elimination round of 16.

Freshman duo, The Mug Maniacs, were consistent throughout the morning, and finished the qualifying rounds in 6th place before being eliminated in the first round. The Fast Fury had put a lot of time into building a shooting mechanism for their robot, and despite major gains just fell short of pulling it all together in time, and were not able to move onto the elimination rounds. We are proud of all that the teams have accomplished this season, and with their grace under pressure in accepted defeat. As Howard said, “Just making it to the states our first year is amazing.”

For more information about Vex Robotics in Maine, check out Robotics Institute of Maine or search You Tube for this year's game, Spin Up.