It might not have been a typical sporting event, but the atmosphere at the FIRST Robotics Mid-Atlantic District qualifier tournament was charged with the same kind of energy as the Super Bowl.

Upbeat music and enthusiastic fans with pom-poms, foam fingers, and face paint welcomed thirty-seven teams of high school students from three states who attended the event at Westtown School field house. Several teams represented Chester County including Downingtown’s Team 1640, which practices at the Technical College High School Brandywine Campus.

The competitive season kicked off with the qualifier event held at the Westtown School, underwritten by TE Connectivity and co-hosted by Westtown School’s Team 1391 ‘Metal Moose,’ and Downingtown’s Team 1640 ‘Sab-BOT-age.’

Before the competition, students work together to design and build robots to succeed in the set of tasks decided by each year’s theme. For this year it was a medieval theme, where to score points, the robots had to successfully navigate obstacles such as ramparts and moats and pick up balls to catapult them through goals in the form of castle towers.

Sab-BOT-age had an excellent evening, as after winning their opening match they went on to win the whole tournament together with their alliance partners, Team 225, “TechFire,” from York and Metal Moose.

“The outcome was a bit of a fairy tale ending for Metal Moose. Metal Moose is a year older than our team, but had never won an official tournament until Sunday’s victory,” said Clem McKown, head mentor for Sab-BOT-age. “Since Metal Moose and our team worked together to host this event, it felt very good to help them achieve their first tournament championship.”

Sab-BOT-age also won the Quality Award, and will be going on to the Mid-Atlantic District Championship at the Stabler Arena in Bethlehem from April 14th to 16th. A good placement in this competition would mean progression to the World Championship in St. Louis.

Among the proud sponsors of the team are the Chester County Intermediate Unit, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Philadelphia Chapter, Boeing, Sikorsky, Comcast, Herrs, and Arkema.