Rolling Meadows High to host robotics competition

High School District 214's robotics team, WildStang, will host a VEX robotics regional competition from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, in the Rolling Meadows High School theater, 2901 Central Road, Rolling Meadows.

Of the 36 teams competing at the 7th WildStang VEX regional, four are made up entirely of WildStang team members. All teams will be playing the 2015 VEX game "Nothing But Net."

The competition is played on a 12-by-12 foot field, where a "blue alliance" and "red alliance" compete in matches that begin with a 15-second autonomous round. During this round, robots may only be controlled by preprogrammed commands. Following the autonomous round comes a one-minute and 45 second period when drivers may control their robot manually.

The goal of this year's competition is to use robots to shoot softball-sized foam balls into nets located on the edges of the field in an attempt to obtain more points than the opposing alliance.

"I'm super excited to see all of our robots come to fruition and watch our teams cooperate in this competition," said Luke Wachlin, a sophomore on WildStang.