By Richard Bammer

By fits and starts, the whirring of gears and hard-rubber wheels, and the clattering of gray plastic storage bins, Heimdall, Vanden High robotics team’s 2015 competition bot, motored around a southeast Vacaville elementary multipurpose room with a mission stored in its electronic mind: Win the Central Valley Regional robotics competition this coming weekend.

In its final practice run Tuesday at Sierra Vista, coming before the face-off against dozens of other teams at Madera South High, the bot and its drivers, members of the RoboVikes, ran through a drill that meets the requirements of “Recycle Rush,” the name of this year’s game, as sanctioned by competition sponsor FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). It is a nonprofit science-promotion group and organizer of regional and national robotics contests, casually called “varsity sports for the mind,” including the FIRST World Championships under the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis (this year April 22 to 25).

via Vanden, Buckingham students prepare for robotics competitions.