WARREN — The Warren G. Harding FIRST Robotics Team ELITE (Encouraging Learning in Technology and Engineering) competed at a national competition in Texas, ending the event ranking 50th of 75 in their division.

The FIRST World Championship took place in Houston earlier this month.

Frank Bosak, team adviser / coach, said the event brought 600 teams from around the world together to show off “the best of the best in high school robotics.”

He said those 600 teams were split into eight divisions of 75 teams. Team ELITE was assigned to the Johnson Division.

Bosak said the qualification rounds are randomly assigned, and Harding’s team received the 11th most difficult match schedule based on statistics from the season. The team was predicted to have a record of one win and nine losses.

“My theme for the team this year was ‘Rise Above,’ meaning no matter what adversity we come up against, we will work as hard as possible to overcome that adversity. I’m very proud to say that we overcame that grueling schedule and managed to flip two of our matches, giving us a record of 3-7.

“We ended the event ranked 50th of 75 in our division and were not selected to move on in the elimination rounds,” Bosak said.

The team ended the official season with a record of 29 wins, 23 losses and one tie and ranked sixth in the state.

“Beyond that, we continued to improve until our very last match and reached a personal season high EPA (Expected Points Added) of 128.2 points,” Bosak said.

Next up, the team is headed to the FIRST Ohio State Championship on Saturday, an invitational event that brings the top teams from around Ohio together for additional gameplay.

A total of 32 teams will compete at the Ohio Championship, including Team 379, the RoboCats from Girard; Team 3193, FalcoTech from Austintown; and Team 8718, Tigerbotics from Howland.

The Harding team first traveled to the FIRST Finger Lakes Regional in Rochester, New York, and then the FIRST South Florida Regional in Miami, Florida. Prior to nationals, Harding’s robotics team competed at the FIRST Midwest Regional near Chicago.

Teams at that event were working to qualify for the FIRST World Championship.

Team ELITE finished its 29th year in the FIRST Robotics League. The team is comprised of high school students from Harding and this season had 29 students on its roster. The team moved into the brand-new, state-of-the-art robotics lab in Warren City School District’s new Student Recreation and Wellness Center, where they have a full-sized practice field and machine shop.