Story and photo by Doug Petrowski

Royal Robotics, the robotics team from Lynnwood High School, won the Quality Award at the Seattle Regional FIRST Robotics Competition held March 29-30 at Century Link Event Center in Seattle. The award is given to celebrate a robot’s robustness in concept and fabrication.

The Seattle Regional competition attracted 64 teams from high schools throughout Washington State and one from Calgary, Alberta. The event pitted robots built by high school robotic club members in two minute and 15 second matches at Ultimate Ascent, a team game where robots attempt to score points by throwing discs through goals and then climbing a metal rod pyramid.

In addition to winning the Quality Award, Royal Robotics placed 28th in the event’s qualifying competitions. Other Edmonds School District participants included Chill Out..! from Mountlake Terrace High school, who finished 27th, and M*A*S*H from Edmonds High School, who finished 16th.

Student clubs were notified in January as to what the game would be for this year’s FIRST Robotic Competitions, then had to build their robots in six weeks. A number of entries from the Seattle Regional qualified for the national competition scheduled to take place April 24-27 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.

FIRST is an acronoym for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”