The Robotics team traveled to Fayetteville, AR (on  Wednesday- Saturday, April 3- 6) to compete in the FIRST Razorback Regionals Competition. Robotics sponsor Mary Beth Mattingly said their robot Mater competed by performing two different tasks.

“Mater was paired with two others teams to form an alliance which would then compete against another alliance,” Mattingly said. “Our task was called “The Ultimate Assent” in which we had to shoot Frisbees into different goals and climb big metal pyramids that were placed throughout the course. Mater is a climber.”

Finishing with the second highest score in climbing out of 41 competing teams, Mater advanced to the semi-final matches. Although 3 out of 8 alliances wanted to team up with Mater, Alliance 8 won them over. According to Mattingly, it was a very close match at the end, but the team did not advance to the final match.

“Our team tried really hard. Not only was our drive team out on the floor directing the robot but our programmers, repairers, builders, and the rest of our supporters were all cheering and trying to help out,” Mattingly said. “We were disappointed to have lost the match but we were proud of how far we had come and our robot did quite well.”

Mattingly later received an invitation to attend the nationals competition. That will include 100 teams from around the world including Europe, Australia and Israel. Mattingly said the team has only a few things to improve on until they are ready for the next competition.

“We are really looking forward to hopefully competing at nationals. Mater will be crated and shipped through Fedex in order to arrive at the competition that day. All team members will be welcome to come but only our drive team will be on the floor with the robot,” Mattingly said. “Mostly it’s just tweaking the programming so the robot can not only climb but can also get the frisbees into the goals faster.”