On April 28, the TechHOUNDS robotics team returned from the FIRST Championship Event in St. Louis.

“We were the fifth highest-scoring robot at the competition, which was pretty exciting,” club sponsor George Giltner said. “We lost by one point, and then we lost by three points. That was a pretty tough loss. The robot worked pretty well; it was well-designed.”

Josh Foster, two-year TechHOUNDS member and senior, said he was proud of the robot’s performance. To Foster, one of the highlights of this year’s TechHOUNDS season was the six-week build season.

“Getting each component to work, and getting to see it all come together to form one functioning robot, was pretty great,” he said.

According to Giltner, this year’s robot is one of the best in the team’s history.

“This robot was the most consistent and one of the highest-scoring robots we’ve ever had, even though it didn’t win a Regional competition,” Giltner said.

On May 10, the TechHOUNDS team will host an awards banquet, its final event during the school year. During the summer, non-senior members also plan to participate in the Indiana Robotics Invitational, and they are currently modifying the robot’s shooter in preparation for the competition.

For Foster, being a TechHOUNDS member has had a unique impact on his high school experience.

He said, “It’s just been a lot of fun. Even though engineering isn’t a career path I’m looking at, it’s definitely been something that I enjoyed.”