A robotics practice at the middle school in February was hectic and productive.

Several students were situated around a computer, writing code and programming the robot.

They were flinging around ideas about the design of the robot’s cart.

All kinds of sounds were echoing through the air, from the typing of a computer to the cutting of a bandsaw.

Team members were eager to learn and welcoming to newcomers.

In order to be part of this exciting group, robotics coach Bob Davis says he looks for one characteristic in prospective team members: a strong interest.

“You don’t already have to know how to build things, you don’t have to already be good at science and math, you just have to want to learn,” he said.

If this is truly the only criteria needed to be a part of the team, then interest must be at an all-time high. The team has grown from 30 members last year to 45 this season.

“Just five years ago we had only five members,” team President Danny Stanescu said.

Last year’s robotics team placed sixth at the Midwest Regional Tournament in Chicago, ranking first out of 55 teams from Ohio. They went on to place first at the Ohio F.I.R.S.T. competition in Dayton.

At this year’s competition on March 26-28, the team won a 16th place finish and captured their 3rd straight imagery award for their uniforms honoring policemen.

The game for this year’s competition, called Recycle Rush, involved stacking plastic storage totes on top of one another. Tournament coordinators placed teams in alliances, made up of three teams each, which competing against other alliances to stack the totes.

“We probably should have finished better than [16th], but there were a few things that happened along the way,” senior Maya Peleg said.

“We were paired with [teams that were ranked low]…otherwise we should have been in the top 10,” Peleg said.

The team went from 48th place after the first two qualifiers, to finishing in 16th place.

The next instance of bad luck came in the quarterfinals. Not being one of the top eight teams, they needed to be selected for an alliance with a qualifying team in order to get into the bracket.

Beachwood was picked by the #4 team, and joined two teams they had worked with separately during the qualifiers, performing well with both of them. However, when the first quarterfinal started, one of the other team’s robots did not move.

“Apparently, they didn’t download their code…so we only scored 80 points that first [round of quarterfinals,]” Peleg said.

In the second round the alliance did better, scoring 130 points. By that point, however, it was too little, too late, as the average of 105 over the two rounds was not enough to move them on to the next round.

Despite the disappointment, team members were proud of what they had accomplished.

“We met up after the competition, and our adviser [Bob] Davis thought we did very well, but things like this just happen,” Peleg said. “It’s life. Nothing is ever perfect….that’s just the cards that we were dealt.”