Fifty teams from across the country and other countries each had six weeks to design and build a robot that could participate in a competitive game in an alliance with two other teams.

During this year’s competition, teams competed in Ultimate Ascent, a game played on a 27-foot by 54-foot fenced field. Teams that scored the most points in this game would win their matches.

Below is the video description of the game of Ultimate Ascent, courtesy of Havabanana Productions.

After the initial qualification matches, the T-Hawks, representing Algonquin Regional High School, placed in the top eight teams at the competition. As a result, the team moved on to the quarterfinals and was able to choose two other teams to compete with in an alliance for the upcoming elimination rounds.

The T-Hawks chose Hurriquake and Schrödinger’s Cat, representing Boston College High School, when it was its turn to pick its alliance.

After sweeping the quarterfinal round with two wins, the alliance moved on to the semifinals as it met the best of three advancing requirement.

The semifinals comprised of three matches.

Hurriquake, T-Hawks and Schrödinger’s Cat alliance won the first match with a score of 80-69. The teams lost the second match 79-87 as well as the third round with a score of 90-118, preventing them from qualifying for the finals as they didn’t meet the best of three requirement. Hurriquake’s alliance lost both rounds to the Funky Monkeys, TJ(Squared) and the IgKnighters.

This was the first year Hurriquake reached the elimination matches.

“I’m still amazed. None of us really expected to go that far,” senior Tucker Beckett, a member of the robotics team, said. “We were all really surprised, but our robot did really well, and we are happy about that.”