From the whopping and hollering, one would have imagined that Vets High School had just won the state championship. The Vets team threw their arms up in celebration. There were excited laughs and, actually, looks of disbelief.

And there was good reason for the students to be excited.

This was the first year the school has entered a team – the Cane Bots – in the Rhode Island’s “FIRST Tech Challenge” hosted by the New England Institute of Technology and the Vets team’s robot had just won a scrimmage.

Pulling the event together hadn’t been easy. Larry West, who coaches the Vets team with Dean D’Andrea, and is Gorton technology education department director, said that the students started off with the mechanism for a remote-controlled car that could do no more than push blocks across the floor. With a $2,000 grant from the U.S. Air Force, the team was able to buy more sophisticated equipment that allowed them to build an “autonomous mode” robot. A computer programmed the robot to perform a series of tasks.

“The kids are really into programming and building,” said West. The students devote 15 minutes before and after school to working on the robot. He said the details of programming includes calculating the rotation of wheels and the circumferences of tires to arrive at the precise distance the robot must travel to complete a series of tasks.

Founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is in its eighth year of state competition. It was also the biggest year, with 32 teams. This was the first time a middle school entered a team.

The game is played on a 12-foot-by-12-foot field with foot-high walls padded with a soft foam mat. The robots don’t look like anything from Star Wars. They look more like Mars Rovers. They are paired on the field and the object is to accomplish various tasks in autonomous and drive-controlled modes during a specific time. Teams are randomly paired to create alliances that compete at various times of the day. Between appearances in two rings, where referees wearing white and black striped jerseys and spectators watched from bleachers, teams gathered at tables where they leaned over computers and made adjustments while the action in the competition rings was projected on large screens to the rhythmic thump of upbeat music.

Awards are not limited to what’s done in the ring. Judges circulated among the teams, assessing their work, team spirit and the science and mathematics underlying their efforts.

Other schools competing were Hendricken, Rocky Hill, Toll Gate, East Greenwich and Cranston East, who fielded two teams – one of them an all-girls team called The Girlz.

Cranston East is a long time FIRST competitor. Coach Al Hurst, who has been teaching robotics for 20 years, abides by a simple philosophy.

“We give them the place to work and the material,” he said.

“I’m not there to build it for them.”