University High School’s robotics team, Dragons Team #1991, attends multiple competitions and events every year during their competitive season.

The team captains have said that so far the competitive season has been going pretty well and that they have been ranking about as well as they rank every year.

“We are expecting to rank high because we’ve made some major modifications to the robot, we have a brand new intake for the cargo pieces so that really speeds up how quick we can score,” said co-captain Maanit Malhan ’23.

During a competition, the robot lifts objects and competes with other robots based on how fast it can go.

The team is hoping to be in the top fifteen out of forty because there are forty teams at every competition. At their first event, they ranked around twenty-first, and they also won the energy award which is essentially based on how the robot looks and how the team presents itself.

In their second competition, they ranked around 26th because they had an issue that held them back, which was the turn part of the robot which rotates the entire arm and speeds up their scoring significantly.

Competitions are two days long. The first day and a half are qualification matches where all the teams get teamed up with other teams and run matches. During these matches, each team has scouts that see what team does what and how they’re performing, and the top eight teams pick whoever they like best. The team did not get picked at either of the matches but they are hoping to get picked at their next competition.

The other co-captains Justin Surace ‘23 and Pacey Maher ‘23 agree with Malhan in this matter.

They have also said that their offseason is coming up. Due to the fact that they are seniors and will not be back next year, they will be trying to have the underclassmen run their codes on the robot so that they will be able to perform well at competitions next year.

The team recently won the Imagery Award at the New England District Waterbury Event and the Judge’s Award at the New England District Hartford Event.