By Isjina Luckett

Robotics Magnet teacher Max Morales and 17 of his students will travel to Eastfield College for the SkillsUSA district competition on Friday to compete in urban search and rescue and mobile robotics. For the past three weeks, the robotics teams have been working to build their robots for this years competition, which will determine if they will advance to state and nationals.

“Our goal is to win district and state competition and eventually win nationals in Louisville, Kentucky,” Morales said.

In previous years, the team has competed in state and national competitions, notably winning nationals in mobile robotics for two years in a row.

“I would like to see urban search and rescue teams win state,” Morales said. “They have been to state competition, but they have not won it yet.”

Junior Adam Metzinger has been in robotics for 3 years and has been to many competitions in his three years of being in the class. He has not only gained experience with building the robots, but he also helps newcomers in the robotics class build robots and prepare them for competition.

“It’s more that they don’t know what to do,” Metzinger said. “They need to learn how they should act and be there to accomplish it.”