By Breanna Jones

On February 6th, Team 458 Born to be Wired traveled to Davenport to compete against 25 teams, gaining third place. In this season, the team has gotten first place in three out of five meets. “Going into it, I felt kind of nervous,” sophomore Becky Fishbein said, “But I was also kind of excited because I knew we’d make it to state.”

For the past six years the team has been advancing to state and this year they continued that streak. “I felt pretty normal to qualify for state because we normally do, but it’s still pretty exciting,” senior Laura Player said.

Mount Vernon robotics team have gone to Super Regionals twice, in 2014 and 2015, and sent four teams to the World Championships. However, there’s always room for constant improvement. Right now, they’re working to enhance their autonomous action, the 30 beginning seconds of a match where the robot is controlled solely by programming. The team feels positive approaching state, improving their autonomous and the fact that their robot can climb gives them a confidence boost.

But the advice from their supervisor and coach Richard Scearce may give them the greatest confidence boost. “He’s been doing robotics for nine years, so he knows what he’s doing,” Fishbein said, “He’s been an amazing coach.”

Student Council is working to arrange a pep bus for the state meet on March 4- 5. The team and coaches would highly appreciate having peer support for our team.