Royal High School’s firstyear Royal Robotics Team defeated two competitors in the team’s first match at the regional Vex Robotics Competition in November at Granada Hills Charter High School.

The team members are David Buff, co-president and co-founder of the Royal High Robotics; Chris Weeks, co-president and cofounder; Rabih Mneimne, robotics analyst; and Nathan Schlaffer, mechanical engineer.

They competed at their first robotics competition with a remotecontrolled robot they built and programmed. The robot consists of four wheels, a metallic framework and a robotic arm.

In the competition, two schools face off against two other schools to see which of their robots can toss and push the most small footballs and softballs through holes and over a wall. Royal Robotics was left without a teammate when its partner school dropped out of the competition. The Royal robot faced the two opponents alone.

Royal’s robot went into preprogrammed and high-speed autonomous mode to hit four softballs through a hole in the wall in three seconds and hit a football over the wall with the mechanical arm. The robot continued to hit footballs over the wall during the second half of the match, while the opposing team’s two robots malfunctioned for most of the round.

Royal High Robotics won the match 49 to 7, with the opponents’ seven points being won on a penalty call. Royal did not place in the top 10 at the end of the competition.

The team is preparing for the FIRST Robotics Competition next year. FIRST is the largest international annual high school robotics competition.

Royal Robotics is seeking engineers to join the team for next year’s competition.

For more information, go to www.vex.innovationfirst.com and www.usfirst.org.