Highland High School robotics team the Finger Tightans with science teacher and coach Timothy Surine.

It was luck that took the Highland Robotics team to the FIRST World Robotics Championships in St. Louis, Mo., last weekend.

The Finger Tightans didn’t advance after attending the state competition in March, but last fall the team signed up for a wild card draw for Worlds. The team had almost forgotten about the draw until they received an email this spring inviting them to Worlds. Team member Lane Griffis says how he reacted to this news, “It was like a mixture of ‘Oh cool this is awesome!’ and ‘Oh crap, we actually have to get working again,’ ‘cause our robot was in a stage of assembly, but not working. It was kind of a mad rush after that to fix it, improve it, and get it working again.”

Besides having a working robot, the team had to worry about how they were going to get to St. Louis. The team received an outpouring of support from local businesses and family. Team member Matt Butler says “Once we realized three weeks before the tournament we were scrambling to get our robot ready, we were like, ‘Oh wait, we need a couple thousand bucks.’ So we wrote out all of our social media. Within the first day the Riverside Area Community Club had already donated an entry fee for us. Huge thanks to them and to everyone else who helped.”

The team competed with teams around the country and the world, and this week they’ve already been discussing what improvements they can make for next year, to “earn their way” to worlds, as student Sam Smith said. The Finger Tightans won’t be taking the summer off. They will be hosting a tournament at Trek Fest in Riverside, and are hosting a summer camp geared towards middle schoolers from June 7-9.