Devine Robotics placed fifth in the state qualifying competition. This makes the second year in a row the Robotics team qualified for the state meet. At State they placed 23 out of 60 teams.

“I am so happy to be apart of this team,” senior Krista Davis said. “We did much better than we did last year, who knows maybe the team will make it past State next year.”

When the team began preparing for the competition they were given a specific time frame, task and supplies to build their robot. It could weigh no more than 24 pounds and it had to move gently along a rail while trying not to tip over, as the claw on the robot picks up trash out of gyres.

“The drivers have to carefully balance the robot to make sure that it doesn’t tip over while the arm just goes down and scoops up the trash,” senior Michael Meek said.

The robot also had to be able to lift a 24-inch cube that sat eight inches below the rail. The robot had to stretch out its arm, grab the box, and successfully bring it back to the student drivers.

“We did really well as a team,” Davis said. “We even had a functioning arm, compared to a lot of other robots that would hit the boxes hoping that the drivers would catch it instead of picking it up.”

At the state competition, the prelim round tested the robots to gather trash from the theoretical surface of the ocean. There where five to six rounds, which lasted three minutes each and in between, teams would have a minute to make any needed modifications.

“There were struggles that we had to face during the competition, sophomore Logan Gonzalez said. “The biggest struggle was having the robot pick up boxes. It was so much of a struggle that most other drivers did not even attempt it, but otherwise our robot was very capable and did very well.”

At state the team and crew stayed in the top 15 for the seeding rounds, while competing five to six times to bring the teams end score to 1,965 points they were also one of the only 4A schools there.

“I feel we did really well, but there were some really good schools who came through and that is what dropped us down to 23,” junior Garrett Fritz said. “It felt good though because the whole team was happy even with the headaches.”