With horns honking, a fleet of vehicles welcomed the Marfa RoboHorns into Marfa early Sunday morning after the robotics team advanced out of the regional round in Lubbock, on Saturday (March 29).
At Saturday’s competition Marfa RoboHorns competed along with 47 other teams, representing 100 regional or district competitions.
In robotics, a team of players has to execute a task – like moving an object from one place to the other - despite a variety of obstacles.
At these competitions, teams compete in alliances in groups of three. During the qualifiers, the top eight teams earned the opportunity to pick their alliance partners.
Although Marfa was ranked 26th during this round, they were chosen by the 5th-rated team, the RoboRaiders from Texas Tech, along with the All-Sparks from Dallas Jesuit.
Unfortunately, that Marfa alliance lost the first and third match, and so didn’t win the best two out of three to advance to the finals. The alliance did advance, however, due to wildcard selection.
The championship robotics competition will be held April 23-25 in St. Louis, Missouri, where 600 teams from around the world will be represented. The Marfa team expects to perform to an audience of 40,000.
Marfa was the only team with a female captain, Eva Guevara. Gavin Livingston was the driver who operated the robot. Other team members include Chris Ibarra, Cesar Torres, Anissa Lujan, Giselle Lujan, and others.