Today and Saturday, a Limestone County robotics team will compete against 49 other teams in the Rocket City Regional competition.

Team 34: The Rockets, as it is known to members and mentors, has been around since 1997 and is based at the Limestone County Career Technical Center. It recently competed in the St. Louis FIRST robotics regional and earned second place.

The winner of this weekend’s competition will earn a spot in the championship to be held at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis on April 26-29.

Team member Adriana Moore would love for folks to come out and cheer the team on today and Saturday, but the team is in dire need of another type of support in the form of sponsorships. In order to make it to the FIRST national competition in St. Louis next month, the team needs to raise about $16,000.

The team has a number of sponsorship packages available, from the one-star level ($250) to the five-star level ($5,000). Each level guarantees a sponsor some form of name recognition, though the prominence of placement depends on the contribution.

About the team

Team 34 has 22 members and 10 mentors, said Moore, a 16-year-old junior at Clements High School. This is her rookie year on the team. She serves as the safety captain and multimedia captain.

She said being a part of the team has brought a lot of enjoyment for her. She joined because she was looking for a place to “fit in” with other students who were more academic than athletic.

“I’m in the gifted program, which is directly related to the robotics program,” she said. “Last year, I went to a regional (competition) and I saw how happy everyone was, and I wanted to be a part of that. We’re such a tight-knit group; it’s a good place for kids who don’t quite fit in at their school.”

Moore said she’s looking forward to the Rocket City Regional and hopes the team outshines its competitors.

“It’s a nice feeling to say, ‘I worked on that robot and it’s a winning robot,’” she said. “It gives you a confidence boost.”

This weekend’s competition

Team 34 was set to practice Thursday and begin competitions at 8:30 a.m. today and Saturday in the South Hall of the Von Braun Center. The Rocket City Regional is another FIRST competition, which is an acronym for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”

The theme is FIRST Steamworks, and teams will be required to compete in a long-distance airship race. The teams have two minutes and 30 seconds to prepare the airships and then fly them.

Each team scores points and prepares to take flight by building steam pressure, gathering materials to start the rotors, and boarding robots onto their airships. The team that has the best prepared airship for the race will win.

Another FIRST Robotics team from Athens, Team 5845 (Twisted Gears) will also compete this weekend as will teams from Huntsville, Madison, Arab and other parts of Alabama. Teams from Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, New Jersey and Ohio will also compete.

“Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) activities are very important to our country’s growth and future,” said David King, chief executive officer of Dynetics, one of the competition sponsors. “For example, FIRST alumni are more than twice as likely to have a science or technology-related career after college and more than three times as likely to pursue a career in engineering.”

This season, participating FIRST students are eligible to apply for more than $50 million in scholarships being made available by nearly 200 scholarship providers.

For more information on Team 34, visit www.team34rockets.com. Those interested in sponsoring the team should click on the “Sponsors” button and scroll down to “Sponsorship Package.”

Potential sponsors may also call the Robotics Booster Club at 256-233-6463 or email lead mentor Monica McConnell at monica.mcconnell@lcsk12.org.

For more on this weekend’s competition, visit https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search/event?id=22707 or https://www.thebluealliance.com/event/2017alhu.