Bainbridge High Spartronics Team 4915 just kicked off their first robotics competition of the season at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, Washington — and are off to a stellar start! 

The team’s robot, EPHYRA, was built specifically for this year's ocean-themed game "REEFSCAPE," and helped the team go 9-3 placing them in the top 10 teams at No. 7 at the end of regular matches.

A big highlight was scoring 170 points in one match — the highest score of Day 1 — by teaming up with one of the world's highest-ranked teams, Jack in the Bot (Team 2910).

EPHYRA was designed to pick up and stack "coral pieces" on a metal reef, using a special three-level lift that lets it reach any part of the reef. The robot can also run on its own (autonomous mode) and work with human drivers (teleop mode), scoring coral pieces fast and in any order: any side, any height!

BHS Junior Emily Ramos, the team’s Drive Coach, became a Semifinalist, one of two students chosen at the Sammamish High event, for the FIRST Dean’s List Award, the only award for individual students. She will go on to the PNW Championship and if selected, will be able to attend the World Championships as a Dean's List Finalist.

For the first time, Spartronics won the Innovation in Control Award sponsored by nVent, which is a FIRST major engineering award that celebrates an innovative control system or application of control components. In this case, it was Spartronics robot's autonomous design. Student programming leader Val DiBona was the leader of this remarkable innovation. 

Spartronics lost their third match in the Semifinals, finishing over 10-5 for their first tournament, but their robot was one of the Top 5 scoring robots of the competition.