Tallahassee's high school robotics team, the OctoPiRates, missed the first place at their regional FIRST robotics competition last month by 4 points, but they had undoubtedly given a spectacular performance. They ended at the second place in a nail-biting 100-104 final.

The team is now all set to participate in a competition at the Bayou Regional event in New Orleans from March 19-21.

The team successfully managed to make it to the final last month with the fastest recycling-tote-stacking robot of the 50 competing robots, including entrants from Turkey and China. The OctoPiRates' robot could not maintain its maneuvers when it rolled over a pool noodle.

Co-captain Alexis Worell, a SAIL high school senior, said that they were at the number one position at the end of the Day 1. "Our human drivers were great, but the autonomous robot moves were the most challenging to program. I'm new to the team, and it was amazing to see the robot out on the field succeeding so well after all of our hours and hours of work", said Leon Junior Cami Young.

For the February 26 competition, 22 students from SAIL, Godby, Rickards and Leon high schools had traveled to Fort Lauderdale. Crystal-Dawn Badger, a mentor and FIRST alumna from Rhode Island who now works at FSU's College of Medicine, said it was great fun and the event had really brought him back to his high school robotics years.

The OctoPiRates embodied gracious professionalism by helping another team with the design of their robot so that it could shed 16 pounds to make the weight limit. SAIL sophomore Ram Moore said that they suggested them to make changes in loaning drills for swiss-cheezing the frame and helped them replace all their steel bots with lighter aluminum rivets. By achieving the second place in the competition, the OctoPiRates had reached the highest place ever.