Forty teams will compete in the Central Illinois regional for FIRST Robotics this week, and among them will be LZHS’s own team Bearbotics, returning for the second year in a row.

The regional will take place at the Renaissance Coliseum at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. This year’s game is a medieval themed challenge called Stronghold. Half of the team will go on Wednesday to prepare for the game, while the other half will join them on Friday. Wednesday is for setting up and Thursday is for practice matches. Then on Friday, the rest of the team arrives and qualification matches begin. Throughout the competition are social opportunities for the teams.

“There are robotics club team socials at the competition and we’ve never gone to any,” Brandon Dobbs, senior club vice president, said. “Basically, a bunch of nerds get together in a large group and we socialize. It gets really awkward because none of us know how.”

There is work to be done, regardless of how social a team is, and it starts as soon as teams arrive on Wednesday.

“Wednesday is more of a set-up crew. It’s more meant to set up the pit and what we need to have. The pit is a 10 by 10 box that everyone receives to work on their robot between matches,” Aaron Karija, senior club president, said. “Usually [the people who go Wednesday are] mainly team leads and the [robot] driver, Timmy [D’Avello, senior.]”

The team only needs the smaller crew for the first two days, but Friday and Saturday are for the rest of the team to join and watch the matches. Saturday will finish up qualifiers and then playoffs and semifinals and finals, Karija said. The competition will be broadcast online as well.

“The after that, it would be the awards ceremony,” he said. “Depending on what we find out on Friday, if we made it to playoffs, it’ll be leave or stay. We usually stay for awards because we want to find out if we won an award.”

Winning an award is one of the team’s goals for the competition as a whole. LZ has won four design awards in years past, and wants to add to that list this year.

“[We want] regional champions or to win an engineering award,”  John Keyzer, robotics club faculty sponsor, said. “Students are interviewed by industry professionals about our robot, its functions, its software. Based on the responses that the students give, they select the team that best represents the criteria of that particular award.”

The competition also provides something for the team beyond just robot practice and awards.

“A road trip gives us an opportunity to do a lot of team bonding that you don’t get without an overnight trip,” Keyzer said. “For example we have a conference room at the hotel we stay at. The kids hook up a projector and they play video games that night.”

The team bonding is valued by the students on the team as well.

“My favorite part is all the team stuff we can do together,” Karija said. “We did a big team dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, and Steak and Shake. The people you’re with, and where you are, it’s fun. Competition gets emotional. It’s serious. It’s real stuff.”