ORONO, Maine — While sitting in the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine on Saturday, all you could hear was the chirping and whirring of dozens of robots zooming across the event center's stage.
"It's a really rich environment for students to expand their horizons and capabilities," John Bapst Memorial High School teacher and robotics coach Michael Murphy said.
Murphy is the head organizer of the first annual 'Lobstah Bowl' robotics competition hosted by UMaine in Orono.
Among the 43 teams competing for first place, members of teams "Gadget Gang" and "Loose Screws" represented nearby Bangor High School. While helping organize her students, robotics coach and physics and engineering teacher Kerri Phipps said it was the team's first competition of the year.
"Seeing the work come to fruition has been fantastic, like even over the span of the ... this is the third day ... the span of the three days seeing all those little tweaks," Phipps said.
According to organizers, the competition consists of multiple teams using their robots to navigate around an arena, collecting as many rings as possible to earn points and outscore their competitors.
Earlier in the week, NEWS CENTER Maine sat in on one of the teams' practices for the competition, preparation that senior Brock Krump said has been valuable in every match.
"I feel like our robot compared to other seasons we've had is definitely quite a lot better and I feel like we're definitely being able to play the game quite well," Krump said.
While competing seemed to be the main focus for almost every team at the event, Krump said it was a blast meeting other robotics teams that they would've never had the chance to meet otherwise.
Like team "Holy Cow," who came all the way from Ontario, Canada.
"Coming here with the 12-hour drive and everything, we were all in cars together, it definitely helps the team bond," teammate Alex said.
During downtime after one of their matches, "Holy Cow" robotics builder and tenth grader Michael said one of his favorite parts of the competition was picking up different strategies from watching other teams and seeing how each of their robots worked.
"Just talking to the other people, meeting them, and learning where they're from, what they're doing here, what they like, that's definitely one of the best parts of the competition," Michael said.
While running around and preparing for the remaining matches left in the day, Murphy said he hopes events like this will help grow the robotics community throughout Maine and keep bringing more competitors to the area.
'Lobstah Bowl' officials said the winners are to be rewarded with a lobster bake of their own at the end of the competition and are already making plans to hold the event again next year.