(April 10, 2008) — As the last day of the FIRST Robotics Los Angeles Regional Competition wore on, Clark’s robotics team, the Circuit Breakers, felt the disappointment of not being chosen to participate in the final matches. However, according to second-year member Antonella Wilby, the competition enabled them to “come together as a team.” The competition took place from March 21-23 in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, as a follow-up competition to the San Diego in the beginning of the month. The game this year required teams to better their driving skills, as it was more of an independent game than in previous years. The game is played between two alliances with three teams on each alliance. In previous years, they were able to protect alliance teams if need be. However, this year’s game required them to better their driving skills. On Thursday, the team faced a challenge of losing a gear and needing to change the entire assembly for the gripper. Friday was spent practicing on the practice field, which was not as helpful as it had been in the San Diego regional, as the field was only a quarter size of the actual playing field. The team faced another struggle of a broken shaft on their robot’s gripper. However, they did not lose heart, and they tried bettering their driving and defensive strategies. Saturday was spent watching other teams play in the field as the team did not proceed to finals. “I felt we succeeded more than in San Diego, and we had nowhere to go but up,” Wilby said. The 2008 team faced a “stressful build season,” Wilby said. “We had to train a brand new group of new members, because there were six new members out of a total fourteen members.” The knowledge of robot building and the FIRST Robotics competition was limited to the new members. According to Wilby, the loss of three mentors who had helped with the design process in the past left the team this year, adding greatly to the hindering of the build process. For the several last weeks of the school year, the Robotics team will be spending their time on a lighter note, completing an art project for JPL that will be displayed in a mural honoring the “great workers of America.”