Quack. Quack. Quack. There goes the alarm. It’s 5 a.m. We’ve only had a few hours of sleep.

This is how, at least in the girls’ room, a typical robotics day starts. While elsewhere in the hotel, the boys’ mornings can start with either completely ignoring each other to waking up in the bathtub to being sat on.

And the Montana State event was not any different. Everyone had to be up and going by 6 a.m. so they could enjoy a lovely hotel breakfast. By 6:45 they are all on the bus and heading to the venue. Like past years the competition was in one of Montana State University’s gyms.

The previous day Powell High School’s robotics teams had already set up their tables in the pits. They were at the venue 7-9 p.m. But the work didn’t stop once they left the gym. They continued work at the hotel until 11 p.m.

When the teams arrived at the gym around 7 a.m.  they began work again so the teams who hadn’t passed inspection yet could do so before 9 a.m. During the 7-9 time slot they also had judges’ speeches to go through. Each team gets 5 minutes to present themselves to three judges. During that time they discuss what their robot can do, the changes the robot went through, programming, how the team functions, community service/ outreach, and how they raise money.

After the judges speeches teams who had not yet passed inspections went back to getting their robot ready to pass. This can either be a simple thing to do or incredibly stressful. For team 6437 Mad Hatters it was the latter.

“Either before my team passed inspections or before the first match one of our mechanisms broke and we had to take it all off,” senior team member and programmer of team 6437 and Secretary of the Robotics Club Lane Summers said.

That was his most stressful moment of the competition. For other teams the experience differs.

“When right before our first match a big component of our robot went out and we had no way to fix it so our robot was basically useless,” sophomore team member of 3188 Jenna Merritt said.

Team 3188 had a rough competition that started with the breaking of their worm-gear.

“Well let me tell you, the biggest thing was our worm-gear which is a big part of our lifting mechanism, it broke and so we couldn’t raise our arm at all, which was one of the biggest scoring parts of the challenge and then we had phone connection issues so just everything was against us,” Merritt said.

Team 10541 also had issues with their robot breaking and were not able to compete as well. They are hoping to make a comeback at Wyoming State.

“We are in the process of making changes,” junior team member of 10541 RoboPanthers Colton Kremer said.

On the flipside of this team 10731 Radioactive had a successful competition ending the matches in 4th place and then placing 2nd in the finals.

“I really liked getting to win the semifinals and try the finals that was a fun experience,” sophomore team captain of 10731 radioactive David Waite said.

The overall ranking of the Powell teams was 4th – 10731 Radioactive, 10th – 6437 Mad Hatters, 20th – 3188 SquiggleSplatBang, and 21st – 10541 RoboPanthers.

The teams also brought home some awards.

Team 6437 won the Design Award. This award, according to firstinspires.org, “Industrial Design at its best. This judged award recognizes design elements of the Robot that are both functional and aesthetic. The Design Award is presented to the team that incorporates industrial design into their solution.”

When asked what his favorite part of the competition was Summers said, “Winning the Design Award because it was an unexpected cherry on top of the day.”

Team 10541 won 2nd place Control Award for the second time. According to firstinspires.org, “Mastering Robot Intelligence. The Control Award celebrates a Team that uses sensors and software to increase the Robot’s functionality on the field. This award is given to the Team that demonstrates innovative thinking in the control system to solve game challenges such as autonomous operation.”

Team 3188 won 2nd place Think Award. According to firstinspires.org , “Removing engineering obstacles through creative thinking. This judged award is given to the Team that best reflects the journey the Team took as they experienced the engineering design process during the building session.”

None of Powell’s teams made it to the next level, but they are hoping to try again at Wyoming State. Teams are working to improve their robots function and autonomous before the next competition.

“We definitely want a way to score in the lander, we’re trying to work on that right now just so we can score more points,” Waite said.

Being as team Radioactive is composed of sophomores and one freshman everyone is proud of how well they have been doing. Team 3188 are also hoping to make a comeback at Wyoming State and hopefully make it to Worlds.

“We have fixed our worm-gear and we are going to add a mineral collector,” Merritt said.

RoboPanthers are also adding new components to their robot.

“We are trying to add a hook onto the robot,” Kremer said.

Added Summers: “I myself hope to have a full functioning autonomous by that time and we hope to be like an assist robot, to be able to move the debris from the crater out to the field so that the robots with arms can pick it up and put it into the lander with a higher rate of ease.”

Powell High School Robotics Club will be competing next at Wyoming State in Casper Feb. 15-16.