The Mercer Island High School Robotics club was part of the winning alliance at the recent Auburn regional event, qualifying them for districts to be held at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. These students have spent countless hours over the last several months building the robot and readying it for competition.

The FIRST robotics program, now in its second year at MIHS, challenges students – working with professional mentors – to design and build a robot, and compete in high-intensity events that reward the effectiveness of each robot and the power of team strategy and collaboration. The team is advised by science teacher Sam Gadbury.

Each year’s event unveils a new, exciting, and challenging game, this year’s is called Steamworks. From the kickoff, teams have just six weeks to build a robot to compete in the game using a kit. In this year’s game, each three-team alliance scores points and prepares to take flight by building steam pressure, gathering materials to start the rotors, and boarding robots onto their airships.