A sound of mechanical whirs and sounds of tension can be heard as the robots on the gray field squirm, drive, and oftentimes, die down when they impact a hard wall.

Here, at the State Qualifying Round, there are three robots representing Pattonville High School. None of them are doing well. At the end of the night, the sole winner is Team 7856 at 33rd place, out of 36.

“We could have done better,” Team 7856 member sophomore Mihir Boara said.

Still, the Robotics Club of Pattonville High School is going to the State competition on March 7, but only one of the three local teams will be participating.

Each team is made up of students that build a different robot and compete with other teams in the area. As only Team 7856 advanced to the State competition, the team was expanded to encompass the two other teams.

“It’s good, I guess,” first-year builder Mihir said. “More people will get the work done faster and get it actually done.”

Team 7856 is hopeful.

The teams that many decreed as ‘too small’ are merging together, and 7856 will have 15 different people building the robot. Even after the devastating loss in the second qualifying competition and the poor result in the first competition, the outlook is good.

“If all goes well with the robot, we can do a lot better than the past competition.”

Before the competition on March 7, the Robotics Club will meet every Tuesday and Thursday and there are only six more meetings until the competition.

The Robotics Club is open to students in all grades, and Mihir hopes that they’ll do better next year with more people.

While the club is a large time-consumer, having two meetings a week – it meets immediately after school on Tuesdays, and students arrive at 5:30 p.m. on Thursdays – Mihir said he “would have joined Robotics Club freshman year, but I had swim team.”