Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto.” The first line in the famous song, “Mr. Roboto” by Styx, could be a common reference when thinking about robots, but when it comes to actually building a robot, no singing is necessary. Robotics competitions are held each year throughout America . It is more than two robots going at it in a raging battle of metal; it’s a big competition of many robots in one event. Albert Lea High School is trying to get into this competition by starting their own robotics team. Although the team hasn’t officially started building the robot, the team is preparing for its first battle. There are many parts and roles to assign for building a robot, such as welding the metal together, the computer programming needed for the electrical components and all the hard work and support from team members in the designing and building of the robot. Sophomore Ben Leison said building a robot is a cool new experience. Leison’s interests include programming and working with the mechanical aspects of the robot. There are other benefits to building a robot on a high school robotics team. “It’s good on a college application,” Lesion said. The robotics team requires a lot of different fields of work and that means a lot of knowledge, so a lot of advisers are needed to help the students. Math teacher Pam Ruble, involved in the programming and math portion of the robot, said, “I am excited to try something new.” Competitions are held at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Robots compete in various competitions. Last year’s competition was soccer. Robots had to shoot soccer balls into their goals. The robots also competed in a challenge where they had to get on a platform and the one who was most creative was the winner. Competitions are different every year. Each team designs its robot to do independent work for the first few minutes. Then students manually control their robots to perform the various activities of the competition. FIRST is the name of the organization holding these competitions. The first big event for the 2010 robotics competition, Splash, is scheduled for Dec. 4. Splash is where team members from high schools all around Minnesota come together to find out about the competition and to learn about the robots and how to build them. Members of the school’s first robotics team are excited and ready to get building on this project. “We probably won’t win, but it will be worth it,” Leison said. Mr. Sundblad believes the team will do well even though it is the first year. “Our team will do fabulously,” Sunblad said. Robot teams come together, compete for the win, but it is more than winning. It’s about having fun with what you are doing.