C.O. high school robotics team heading to district tournament

A group of 23 students based out of Mountain View High School in Bend are heading to Portland for the FIRST Pacific Northwest Championship Tournament in robotics.

If their team, High Desert Droids, qualifies, their next stop is the FIRST Robotics World Championship.

From designing to building, this group does it all.

“We spend five to seven days, hours on end in this classroom working it through, making it work as best as possible,” Mountain View senior Megan Dyer said Wednesday.

She said the best part is being able to create something.

“I love building things, and I always have — designing, making something work, seeing something go from being on a computer or an idea in my head to being real life,” Dyer said. “It’s just really cool.”

Their coach, Todd Andresen, said it’s about more than just building things. He sees it transform students.

“From freshman year to senior year, I’ve had kids come in, the quintessential ‘I’m a smart bookworm’ type — ‘I can’t talk to other people, because they scare me’ — to doing stuff like this and making presentations.”

They’ll have to be ready for some confrontations next Wednesday, when they take their robot, Tia, to the district championship. This is the farthest the team has gotten in several years.

“I want them to succeed. I want them to have that feeling of, ‘If I do things right, good things will happen.’ And it’s happened so far with this group. So I’m pretty excited,” Andresen said.

If they qualify, they’ll head to the world championship in St. Louis next month.

The team raises all its own funds to cover building, entry and travel fees. If you want to help them out, you can visit their website at www.team753.com.