Brownwood Middle School (BMS) Robotics students participated in a competition in Keene, TX on Saturday, April 5th. “Four teams competed, three teams of 7th grade students and one 8th grade team,” stated BMS A/V and Robotics teacher Ben Cox. “The 8th grade team, the Maroon Lions, won 2nd place out of 27 teams!”

“The teams had to gather objects into their safe zone during an autonomous portion to earn points,” said Cox noting that they were not allowed to "drive" the bot, it must only run a program. “Then, during the driver-controlled portion, they used their bots to place these items in designated spaces on a game mat to score more points.”

The teams were paired with teams from other schools in "alliances" that changed every round during the qualifying portions of the contest. They worked exclusively with a team of their choice for the finals. The Maroon Lions were paired with a team from Southwest Christian CTC.

BMS students on the Maroon Lions team included Alex Ripley, Jayden Francis, Ben Lawton, and Daniel Lovell.