The CHS robotics team will compete at the state Boosting Engineering Science, and Technology, or BEST, competition at the University of Texas Dallas.

The team earned the opportunity after winning the qualifying contest in Lubbock on Oct. 19, where the team competed in five qualifying rounds, three semifinals rounds, and finally three final rounds to take first place.

“I’m excited to see who we are up against, because there are going to be teams from all over the state that we have never seen before,” sophomore Jade Roach said.  “I’m interested to see what they come up with.”

Canyons biggest competition was Lazbuddie High School.  They beat Canyon in their notebook, presentation and spirit.  However, Canyon scored higher on the actual task the robot had to do, bringing them out on top in the end.

“It was very exciting when we started to get a huge lead with points,” Roach said.  “Then it made me a little nervous when Lazbuddie started to pull ahead, but since we had a different game plan we still came back with a win.”

Roach said the team had some features on their robot that were especially helpful to their success.  The claw on the robot could do things that other teams’ robots could not.

“There were transistors we had to pick up, and not everyone’s claw could flip over,” Roach said.  “Since our claw was able to do that, it gave us a big head start.”

As a second year team member, senior Chance Turner said the process of building a robot has been a learning experience both years.

“We had six weeks to build it our kit,” Turner said.  “We got it done at the beginning of last week.  Last year it was done midnight before the competition day.”