Yesterday members of the TechHOUNDS traveled to St. Louis to compete with their robot, Flick, in the FIRST Robotics World Championships. The competition will continue through tomorrow.

According to team leader George Giltner, the team expects to do well because the team won first place in the Purdue Boilermaker Regional and the Rose Hulman Crossroads Regional.

According to team member and senior Stephen Thompson, the team ranked sixth, 10th and 15th in the three different robotics ranking systems.

“We have never been this high ranked in the past,” Thompson said. “So that kind of puts a target on our back for people looking out for us and wanting to play defense on us more strongly than they normally would.”

The TechHOUNDS will be in the “Archimedes” division of the competition.

“The teams are divided up like a NCAA bracket,” Thompson said. “They try to divide the most even competition possible. Since there is no real even ranking system, rookie teams will also be in the same division as the top tiered hall of fame teams. They try to avoid having one big powerhouse division.”

Giltner said the team’s division placement can play a pivotal role in its advancement through the competition.

“If there aren’t many good robots in our division, we may be paired up with a team that doesn’t do very well and have to go against teams later in another bracket who do perform well.”

“We’ve obviously been lucky. But lucky isn’t as good as good,” Thompson said. “So we are expecting to do a lot better than in years past, but it’s really all up in the air.”