Team SCREAM, Smith-Cotton High School’s competitive robotics team, was on the winning alliance at the FIRST Robotics Arkansas Regional, held March 19-21 in Searcy, Arkansas.

The teams joined the Highlanders from Fort Collins, Colorado, and the Hope BotCats from Hope, Arkansas on the No. 1 seeded alliance, which went undefeated in the playoffs and posted the regional high score (550 points) in the final championship match. With the win, Team SCREAM qualifies for the FIRST World Championships in April.

This year’s FIRST competition is “Rebuilt,” which calls for robots to gather yellow balls and shoot them into a hopper. Part of Team SCREAM’s rebuild was switching how their robot collects and shoots the balls to improve efficiency. Team SCREAM Jr. also had a successful run in Arkansas, being on the No. 2 alliance and making it all the way to the finals. Team SCREAM and Highlanders were the two top-scoring teams through qualification matches. In the playoffs, Hope BotCats played defense, making it more difficult for opponents’ robots to score, and helped feed additional balls to SCREAM and Highlanders to boost their scoring.

The regional championship banner is among a handful of honors the teams brought home. Team SCREAM Jr. received the Autonomous Award for its robot’s performance in the opening period of matches when robots operate without human guidance. Team SCREAM won the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award, which “celebrates a team who demonstrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community,” according to FIRST. Additionally, longtime Team SCREAM mentor Bill Fowler was honored with the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award, which is presented to an outstanding mentor who best leads, inspires, teaches, and empowers their team using excellent communication skills. He will get to compete for the Championship Woodie Flowers Award in April in Houston.

Both Smith-Cotton teams now look ahead to the Greater Kansas City Regional on April 9-11.

Photo courtesy of Team SCREAM