For six weeks, Mid-Pacific’s robotics team stayed until 7:00 pm every day to build the robot they used to compete in the FIRST robotics competition.

“Build season is a 6-week long period of time; teams are allotted this time to design, build, program, paint, and practice,” said Sybounmy.  

While other schools, who attended this world robotics competition, had more than 20 students on their team, Mid-Pacific’s team only had 5 members. Even with the small group, the team still made it to the world competition in Houston on April 13.

The robotics team joined 70,000 other competitors from across the globe to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition in Houston, Texas. The team placed 61st in their category.

“Compared to other teams, who have about 10-20 people on their team, we only had 5 people, so it was really challenging for us to build this project,” said 11 grader Mike Xiao.

This made the distribution of work was difficult because there was a lot to be done with only very few people, said 11th grader Tom Lyu.

“It certainly is an honor. Not every team is able to get the invitation to go to world,” said 11th grader Tom Lyu.

The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) brings students together to compete in an international, high school robotics competition. On April 17-20, more than 70,000 people and 1,300 robots flew to Houston to attend this competition. High school teams used their robots, that they designed and programed, to compete against other teams, according to the competition website.

Four schools from Oahu, including Mid-Pacific, attended this world robotics competition. It is the school’s second time going to this competition, said 12th grader Skyler Sybounmy.

“We’ve been to nationals previously, in 2017, and we won an award, which got us this invitation,” said Lyu.

Mid-Pacific’s robotics team programmed their robot to “manipulate a plastic disc and a rubber ball to score points by delivering them to several places on the field,” said Sybounmy.

Lyu said going to this world competition is a great opportunity to meet others who are also interested in robotics.

“Not only do I get to meet professional engineers, but it gives me the chance to talk to people from other countries and states that are also [involved in] robotics,” said Lyu.

Building this robot required a lot of preparation to make, said 12th grader Logan Wong.