The combined De Soto and Mill Valley High School robotics team is preparing to compete at the Greater Kansas City Robotics regional competition on Mar. 13 through 15. The three-day competition consists of one day of practice, one day of competition in which the team will compete in ten rounds with their robot performing a specific task and one day of final rounds. The team has been building, wiring and programming the robot since Jan. to perform specific tasks in the competition.

“This year the robot has to be able to deliver gears to an axle, then that axle will lift the gear up to our human players who will collect the gear,” junior Cody Moose said.

The team has put in extensive hours of work, meeting four days a week, including all day on Saturdays in order to get the robot competition ready.

“Our build season began the first week of January when they revealed the game, then we immediately started designing and strategizing,” Moose said. “Once we figured out what we were going to do, we made the robot. Our mechanical team built it, our electrical team wired it, and my fellow programmers and I programmed it. So, we’ve just been working on those various things to make sure the robot is ready for this regional.”

The robotics team has the additional challenge of coordinating work between two schools.

“We do everything at Mill Valley, so everyone shows up whenever they can, which is pretty much all the time. The programmers are able to work outside of school as well,” junior Alex Webber said.

At the regional competition, there will be 60 teams from around the country, as well as a few international teams.

“Competition is really cool. Last year, we competed against teams from seven different states and three countries: the U.S, China and Brazil. It’s really cool because you can make friends from other teams and it’s a really positive atmosphere, it’s not super competitive,” Webber said.

The team hopes to move on to the next round of competition after regionals, which will be held in St. Louis in April.