A four-person robotics team comprised of Mercersburg students Zeke Wadlington ’23, Charlton Schaner ’22, Luke Golumbic ’23, and Pablo Garza Gutierrez ’22 represented the United States and finished ninth out of 22 teams from around the world in the Rescue Line division at RoboCupJunior International 2022, which was held in July in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Mercersburg quartet also teamed with students from India for a third-place finish in the SuperTeam competition, where teams that do not have a common official language are paired.

In Rescue Line, teams construct a robot that navigates the mission environment to “rescue” a virtual “victim,” while the SuperTeam competition brings together two teams to complete a challenge using both of their robots.

To qualify for the international event, Mercersburg robotics teams swept the top two places in Rescue Line at RoboCupJunior USA in May in Princeton, New Jersey. This year marked the 11th appearance for a Mercersburg team at RoboCupJunior International since 2007, and the first since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.