Wall High School’s robotics team reached state qualifiers this previous fall semester by programming a robot to compete at ascending levels of competition. This year, however, unlike most years, every round of competition the team attended was completed virtually. 

Students competed against local opponents during the first round of the virtually-hosted conference at regionals, where they placed in the top hub. Then, they qualified for the state competition along with other advancing 1A-6A school robotics teams ranging from all over Texas and even parts of New Mexico.

“The state competition is typically held in Lubbock, which is the UIL’s central location,” computer science teacher Curt Taylor said. “The actual competition was put on in the old elementary where the whole thing was virtually Zoomed.”

The first phase of the competition involved demonstrating how the robot worked by playing a game to complete particular assignments. 

“For the driving competition, we had to play a game with our robot to disinfect viruses,” sophomore Dietrich Jost said. “It [our robot] was programmed to pick up different objects representing cells and vaccines to complete certain tasks of the game.”

Next, the team was required to market their robot in front of UIL judges and prove the mechanics behind it were capable of accomplishing certain tasks.

“We ended up presenting ourselves to look like a business rather than just a group of kids,” sophomore Tristan Moon said. “There were different categories that factored into our presentation, like: marketing to sell the robot, showing the judges how the robot works, and displaying our website.”

Even before receiving the end results, committing to participate this year despite circumstances with the pandemic showed great success.

“Although we each had our own positions when we presented at the competition, no one ever really felt the need to have a group leader,” Moon said. “It was better for us to work as a team in order to prepare our best work.”