The battlefield was riddled with obstacles and castles. Robots littered the area, and the fortunate ones crossed the battlefield and hurled huge balls at the enemy’s castle. No, this isn’t a new video game, it’s not the new Captain America movie, nor is it World War Three. It’s the FIRST World Championships, a robotics competition with teams gathering for the finals in Saint Louis, Missouri. It was attended by 600 of the top robotics teams in the world, all the way from Israel to Southern Lehigh’s own, Team 834, better known as the Spartechs.

FIRST is an organization devoted to immersing students into real world STEM jobs and issues. Every year it hosts a robotics competition for students. The season begins with a kickoff video that outlines the challenge and resources students are allowed to use on their robot in order to accomplish the task. From there, the teams have six weeks before the competition to plan and build the robot. They go to district competitions and the winners attend nationals.

This year’s competition was known as “Stronghold.” It combined elements of dodgeball and capture the flag. Each team set up different defenses, and the robots and their drivers had to devise schemes to cross these defenses and throw balls into the opposing team’s tower. If enough balls were thrown into the tower, the tower was then “captured.”

The six-week period of designing and planning the robot can be the most stressful time for teams.

“The last two nights were really hectic, and we stayed here till like ten at night fixing the robot and making sure it actually worked,” sophomore Jeanne Haverhill said.

After three wild fortnights, the teams must send out the robot to be inspected to make sure no rules were broken. Everything must be very precise; for example, the arms must reach a certain length or the robot will not qualify.

“When planning this we had to not only get all the stuff we needed for the robot to function, but we also had to figure out…how can we stay within the size and regulation,” junior Mitchell Johnson said.

In competition, the teammates have different roles and positions just like in sports such as basketball or soccer. The team includes a human player who stands next to the playing field and walks up and down the sideline, directing his teammates who cannot see the other side of the field using hand signals. There is also a driver who controls the robot and all of its moving parts.

The Spartechs left The Gateway City very successfully, finishing the championship 121st out of the over 3,700 teams worldwide. This is made even more impressive by the fact that the team did not immediately qualify for the World Championships right out of the district competition; instead, they were put on a waitlist and were put in when another team couldn’t go due to financial reasons or other complications.

Despite their success in the tournament and finishing fourth in their division at the championships, the team was not selected to move on to the final championship round.

“We weren’t well known enough. Most teams are really big name teams,” Haverhill said.

Despite not making the championships, the team still had an overwhelmingly positive outlook on the week in Saint Louis, chock full of seminars and complex machines going head to head in battle.

“You got to experience a new city and see a lot of unique designs that I’ve never seen before,” senior Patrick Mackenzie said, “and you also got to meet a bunch of different kids from around the world.”