UPDATE: Panthers Now Ranked 35th in Robotics Championship

More than 11,000 students from 29 countries are competing in a robotics championship this week in St. Louis that combines the excitement of sports with the rigors of science and technology. 

And the Team 303 is one of those teams. 

The international competition, being held at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, is sponsored by a non-profit organization called For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). Under strict rules and limited time and resources, teams build and program robots to perform tasks against competitors in a series of robotic games.

, consisting of students from Bridgewater-Raritan High School, took part in the first round of qualifying matches Thursday. It is one of 352 teams competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The FRC teams represent 8,800 students from five countries, including Australia, Canada, Israel, Mexico and the United States.

At this point, the Panthers are currently ranked 35th out of 88 teams, with four wins and four losses.

The team still has a few matches left throughout the day.

Thomas Bennardo, a senior at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, has been a member of the Panthers Robotics Team for four years. This was Bennardo’s first international competition, and he serves as the team’s safety captain.

“It’s not much different from the regional competitions,” he said at Thursday’s competition. “It’s just bigger. One of the best things about the competition is how to get all of the aspects of the robot to work together.”

The competition has four divisions—Archimedes, Curie, Galileo and Newton—all named in honor of history’s greatest scientists and mathematicians. Teams in each division compete against each other in several qualifying matches. 

The winning teams then proceed to the final division called Einstein, which is the championship game. Qualifying matches for all teams will continue through Saturday morning, and the championship matches begin at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

In addition to the robotics competition, the FIRST Championship event also includes the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for high school students, which features smaller robots. The other two groups in the championship include the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) for elementary and middle-school students and the Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) for 6- to 9-year-olds.  

FIRST was founded in 1989 to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. The group designs programs to encourage students to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge and life skills. 

More than $15 million will be awarded to winners in this year’s championship. For more information on FIRST, visit www.usfirst.org.

For more information on Team 303, visit team303.com.