Submitted photo The drive teams for teams 8029, 48 and 2338 celebrate after learning that they won Finals 2 and the FIRST Midwest Regional. The rest of Team E.L.I.T.E. are in the background holding the 48 sign.

WARREN — The Warren G. Harding High School FIRST Robotics Team E.L.I.T.E (Encouraging Learning in Technology and Engineering) 48, which is in its 29th year of competing, has qualified for the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, Texas, April 29 to May 2.

Frank Bosak, team adviser, said Team E.L.I.T.E. scored 37 championship qualifying points when they were finalists at the FIRST Finger Lakes Regional in Rochester, New York.

They then scored 59 championship qualifying points after winning the FIRST Midwest Regional near Chicago, Illinois — just 5 points short of automatically qualifying at the event.

“That gave them a total of 96 championship qualifying points and enough to qualify for the FIRST World Championship through the regional pool. Team E.L.I.T.E. has accepted the invitation and are now making preparations to travel to Houston,” Bosak said.

Bosak said the team also competed at the FIRST South Florida Regional in Miami, Florida this past weekend.

The FIRST Midwest Regional event brought together 35 teams from Illinois, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Mexico and Ohio for a three-day event where teams worked to qualify for the FIRST World Championship.

This year’s competition had teams compete in 3 by 3 matches where the goal is to collect 6-inch foam balls off the floor and shoot them into a funnel that’s 72 feet off the ground. The team with the most points scored in the 2 minute and 40 second match wins.

Bosak said the team has competed for 29 years, and the team has made it to the national championship in about half of them.

Bosak said while the whole team is credited for its hard work and teamwork, Ke’Mareya Russell, a sophomore team member, won the “Safety Star of the Day” award this season.

He said that the individual award celebrates a student that advances the culture of safety on their team and at the competition. Bosak said Russell made sure the team had a safe working space.

“I’m really proud of this team and how far we’ve come. I’ve been working for all the seniors for four years. We’ve worked our butts off to get this and I’m just excited,” said team member and robot pilot Michael Whiddon, a senior.

Bosak, who was a team member when he was on the team at Harding from 2002-2005, said the team worked very hard this season.

“The team never gave up through adversity or any challenge. They fixed the problem,” he said.

The team has been successful with the robot named “Extreme Machine 29.”

Bosak said FIRST Robotics recently changed the qualification rules to a NASCAR-esque points based system. Teams earn qualification points at their first two events and are selected from a pool of teams to attend the championship.

Team E.L.I.T.E. 48 is in its 29th year in the FIRST Robotics competition. The team is composed of high school students from Warren G. Harding High School and has 29 students on its roster. Of the 29 members, 20 have competed in past years and nine are new.

The team just moved into the new, state-of-the-art robotics lab in Warren schools’ new Student Recreation and Wellness Center, where they have a full-sized practice field and machine shop.

The team’s major sponsors are Warren City Schools, Howmet Aerospace and Aptiv.

FIRST Robotics Competition combines sport with science and technology. Teams of students are challenged to design, build and program industrial-size robots and compete for awards, while they also create a team identity, raise funds, hone teamwork skills, and advance respect and appreciation for STEM within the local community.

Bosak said teams are given eight weeks to design, prototype, build, program and test a 115-pound robot that completes the year’s challenge, which is released each year in January.