On April 27, the DHS robotics team filed into a charter bus, on their way to St. Louis Missouri.  Forty students went to represent DHS at the world competition, where about 60 different nations were competing.

“Competing side by side with teams from Israel, and just (teams) all across the U.S. is super exciting,” senior Bailey Flint said .

Seniors like Baily are a part of the drive team which is composed of four players, the driver, co-pilot, drive coach, and the human player.

The driver (Sam Gilson), uses joy sticks to control the wheels of the robot. The co-pilot, Britney Ammerman, controls the arms of the robot moving them up and down. The drive coach, Satyajit Sarkar, watches the field and tells other drive team members what to do, while also making strategy decisions. Finally the human player, Bailey Flint, interacts with the game pieces, and can go into the spy box to watch the other team’s players.

Although the drive team are the only players that are on the field during the game, the other team members play a large role as well.

“The spirit of the team is really what keeps us going, because there are matches where we win and that’s great but there are also matches where we lose and that’s hard. So just having the team that’s always cheering for us, and always behind us is really what gets us from one match to the next,” Flint said.

The robotics team finished in 26 place on the field.

“An overall good showing for a robot,” Flint said.