Senior captain Clara Slade said she was disappointed with the robotics team’s results at regionals, which took place April 7-8, but looks forward to start focusing on next year.

“We’re starting to think about recruiting kids. We’re really starting to try to get organized and figure things out and teach kids how to do things,” Slade said.

Slade said despite not reaching their goal, the competition was a valuable learning experience for the team.

“I wish we would have placed a little better but overall I think we really grew as a team. I think we’ve gotten more organized. We’ve figured out some of our strengths and I think we’re starting to identify some of our weaknesses and stuff and now we’ll be able to hopefully improve on those,” Slade said.

Team adviser Trevor Paulson said the team came 49th out of 63 teams.

“We did worse than what we were originally expecting but better than we’ve been previously,” Paulson said.

Slade said she feels excited to see how the team improves next year with their new members.

“So many kids know how to program, many kids know how to design, many kids know how to build and they actually know what they’re doing so we’re just more prepared for next year,” Slade said.

Although Slade graduates this year, she said she still has opportunities to work with the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) program in the future.

“There are a lot of volunteer opportunities I can do through FIRST,” Slade said, “I can come back and mentor for the team, I can volunteer to be a safety inspector person, so I can come back and help do whatever next year.”

Slade said the main thing she took out of this year’s competition was learning how to adapt and move forward when plans fall through.

“Your original idea may not work out the way you plan but you don’t have to completely give up because when our robot failed we realized that we were actually really good at other things so we were able to back up and realize we’re still good at something,” Slade said.