Warwick Veterans High School is one of four Rhode Island high school robotics teams participating in the FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics East Super Regional Championships being held this week at the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Vets was one of the four top performing schools at Rhode Island’s statewide competition about a month ago, but only recently learned they will be one of the 72 teams from the Eastern region participating in the competition.

Vets High School will send seven students as well as their “CaneBot,” which the team calls “Chester,” to the event on March 19 to 21.

The top three teams, Aquidneck Island, Burrillville and Mt. Hope learned they were contenders the day of the state competition, but according to Lawrence West, the robotics coach for Vets, due to the rising popularity of robotics in Rhode Island a fourth spot opened up a little over two weeks ago and Vets was invited to join the regional competition.

With less time to prepare for the regionals than the rest of the teams, West said the team has been working nonstop the past two weeks to make the appropriate adjustments to Chester.

“We joke that we didn’t sell our souls to Satan, but to a robot named Chester,” said Kaleigh Marcotte, one of the main builders for the Vets High School Robotics Team.

Nick Leland, one of the builders said, “This year has been more of a commitment, but it’s been worth it.”

This is only the second year Vets has had a robotics team and last year the team came in ninth overall in the state.

West said, “Every time we enter into a competition we figure something out, just how to make the robot a little bit better.”

At the states the team found that although their practice field was the same set-up as their playing field, the floor was “stickier” and thus the wheels didn’t work as well as they had hoped. One of the changes they made for this competition is to fashion their own wheels for less traction for better control.

One part of the competition requires “autonomous movement,” where the team programs the robot to perform a very specific task. Vets had the second highest autonomous score for the state competition this year.

“They build it and I make it walk,” Kevin Sanita, the lead programmer for the team, said. Since finding out the team will be participating at regionals he said he has been working out the kinks to make “the code smoother.”

Altogether West estimated that Chester has had $800 to $900 worth of upgrades since the last competition and altogether is worth near $3,500.

Along with practices and improving Chester, the team has also been fundraising for the trip, which will cost the team somewhere between $3,500 and $4,500.

There were donations from the families, but the students have been canning at Dave’s Marketplace, Dunkin Donuts and other local businesses. They even held a dress-down day for the teachers at Vets.

Leland said, “It’s nice to know that everyone in the community wants to see us do well and help to send us there it makes it feel like there is a greater force behind everything.”

West said it was really moving to see the community come out and support the team. He said that although you see a lot of that with sports teams, it was nice to know the community can recognize the value in the robotics team.

The team is also putting together bags filled with Rhode Island goods to give to other teams at the competition, because the students wanted to “represent Rhode Island in the best way they can,” according to West.

The team reached out to some of Rhode Island’s most iconic businesses for donations they could hand out at the competition in Scranton. Although many of the businesses never responded, Iggy’s gave a large donation to the team.

“Iggy’s really stepped up and went above and beyond what they needed to for this team, donating bumper stickers, bags of clamcake mix and they were so happy to do it,” West said.

These goodie bags are also very strategic. At the competition the team is going to have to make alliances once they are paired with their randomly selected teammates.

West said that by having the teams match up for the event kids learn to be gracious and professional, making some friends along the way while working for a common goal. Already the robotics team seems really close.

Carolynn Silva, who keeps the notebook for the team, said, “We all work so hard and are with each other so much that we’ve developed really strong friendships.”

All the students agree the team has given them opportunities they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Kyle DiCarlo, a main builder, said, “I am in a lot of honors classes and I don’t get the chance to do too many hands-on things and I love being able to do something like this.”

“This club gives me the chance to be part of a team, which is something I have always wanted to do. I always have a lot of fun. I’ve made a lot of good friends through the team,” Scott Watterson, who helps manage the equipment, said.

The students are getting excited for the competition but are also becoming nervous.

Marcotte said, “The competition is going to be insane. All the robots from Rhode Island were good. I can’t imagine what all these other states are bringing.”

The team is hoping to at least make it in the top 20 for the competition

Sanita said he is most excited about being back in a competitive atmosphere to see how Chester will do up against the “best of the best”

He said, “We did really well at the last competition. When the robot does really well we all freak out at our success”

West said, “It’s only our second year as a club, but this is a really good group of kids, they’ve worked so hard for this. It just goes to show what you can do with great and motivated kids.”