The Wentzville Ratchet Rockers robotics team has had a successful run of accomplishments this spring and continues to improve.

The team won first place at St. Louis Regional Competition at Chaifetz Arena on March 9-11. The Rockers has about 50 students from all three Wentzville high schools combined, and about 12 of those students come from Liberty.

Robotics is a growing program that encourages students to pursue STEM career and education opportunities. The team gets a challenge and then they have six weeks to build, design and program the robot.

The Rockers has practiced almost every day of the week, including on Saturdays for a total of nine hours straight.

At the regional competition, the Wentzville team competed with a total of 52 other teams from seven different states.

In the final round, the Ratchet Rockers were undefeated and earned a spot at the world championships in St. Louis on April 26.

They also won the Innovation in Control Award for their vision programming and control.

“I was elated. All our hard work had finally paid off,” said sophomore Maya Angeles.

At a robotics competition, there are many events that take place.

Some people on the team stay in what is called the pits. In the pits they work on fixing and repairing the robot as the day goes on.

The other people who aren’t fixing the robot are staying in the stands and watching the competition take place. They also record date here.

Along with placing first at regionals, the team have also designed one of only two robots currently competing worldwide.

The Ratchet Rockers are currently ranked 25th worldwide.

The team has many things to look forward to in the future and if they continue to work as hard as they are, they will accomplish so much more.

“I hope that in the future we can win worlds,” said junior Seth Tate.

The Head Coach Darrell Wodrich is very proud of the robotics team.

“This level of performance doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of dedicated, hardworking students and mentors, backed by the support of the school district and our generous sponsors.”