For those who’ve been following the Roboctopi, Port Townsend’s high school level team for FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics, members not only made it to the world championships in Houston, Texas, April 19-22, but also managed to finish in the middle of its level on Newton Field.

“Of course, we would have liked to have done better, but we were playing with the 400 best robots in the world, and that is amazing,” team member Max Morningstar said. “While there, we got to play a match with Team 118, who has their build workshop in the Space Shuttle building at NASA, and we got to meet and compete with, and against, teams from Mexico, Israel, Turkey, Australia and Canada, among others.

“We put Port Townsend on the FIRST Robotics map, and we know that future teams will come back here and compete again.”

Among the team’s adult supporters, Don and Lynne Folsom of Port Ludlow deemed the Roboctopi’s performance “outstanding for your first year out,” noting that Team 118 is the no. 1 team in its field. “They represented Port Townsend and all of us on the Olympic Peninsula extremely well,” Don Folsom said.

Team parent Dallas Jasper likewise praised the “incredible world-class experience” of competing among 400 teams from 33 countries in a single building, with an estimated attendance of 30,000.

“The final match was played in the Houston Astros stadium, and Will.i.am [and] Dean Kamen were included in the speakers,” Jasper said. “Our team was on Newton Field with two teams who had won world championships previously, so they got to compete with, and against, some very amazing robots.”