BTC’s Prometheus Panthers attended their first robotics qualifier at Brandon High School in Brandon Ms. Saturday morning, kicking off robotics season with 12 hours of competition.
Each match promised an action-packed few minutes, beginning with an autonomous period, when drivers cannot guide their robots. The stakes rise when that initial hands-off period ends and drivers take up their controls, dozens of eyes gazing through mandatory safety glasses toward the mats as they maneuver their robotic creations toward pixels, the colorful hexagons the robots are supposed to move for points. Buzzers ushered in a heightened sense of urgency and paper planes launched from their bots. While the Panthers were not equipped with autonomous or the flight of a paper airplane. They were picked for an alliance in the semi finals. With every match the Panthers changed batteries and tightened parts and added or replaced parts that fell off their robot in competition. The Panther’s were not able to move on to the Final’s or won a golden ticket, but came away from the qualifier knowing what they needed to do for the next qualifier in Wesson to move on to State.