The robotics team competed and placed as a semi-finalist in two offseason tournaments and will compete during regular season competitions beginning Feb. 28.

The new game for the upcoming season will be released on Jan. 4, leaving under 7 weeks for build and prep time.

“As we get closer to competitions and building our robot, we tend to stay after school longer and have more meetings throughout the week,” junior and robotics team member Ethan Rogers said. “Before the tournaments, we make sure that our drive team has a robot to practice with and that our programmers have something to program.”

Offseason tournaments give the team extra practice time before the regular season starts up.

“Offseason competitions allow everyone on the team to play a role that is new to them,” Rogers said. “This could include drive team, scouter, pit crew, etc.”

One of the PHS crews at the tournament was an all-girl team.

“It isn’t about winning – it’s about helping other teams and improving your robot from last year,” junior Lena Busbee said. “My favorite part of robotics is getting to use real world problem solving in engineering and building the necessary skills to be successful in the engineering world.”

The team meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. to work on the robot for the FIRST Robotics Competitions.

“During the offseason, we make a list of materials and things that we might need in order to build another robot,” Rogers said. “Throughout FRC you make a lot of friends that you keep in touch with, which is really nice when trying to problem solve so you don’t have to try and do it all by yourself.”