The SDA robotics team won its first regional competition March 5 and 6, allowing it to advance to the championships in St.Louis, Missouri for the first time for in five years.

The robotics team competed against 60 other teams for a spot to compete in the championships in April of this year. At each competition, the teams play in qualification matches which determine the ranking. The top eight teams then choose two other teams to join them in an alliance. By the end of the competition on Saturday, the SDA robotics team was in the 20th ranked seat when it was pulled into the fifth ranked alliance. They were then able to move on to the final and win, said junior Austin Dilley.

Every robotics team has a six-week building period to build a robot and then places the robot in a bag, where it cannot be touched or reworked, until a competition. The teams compete each year for a season of about two months, from the end of February until April, said Dilley.

Since this is the first time the team has qualified to the championships in St.Louis in five years, the experience will be a new one for everyone in the class. “No one in our class, in our four years, has been able to go to St.Louis and so this is really cool to get a chance to send our seniors and some of our class to St.Louis,” said Dilley.