(March 23, 2007) — With recent success at the Los Angeles Regional competition, the Clark Robotics team will head to the San Diego Regional today and will compete the rest of the weekend. Their first success came from their competition March 9 and 10, and, according to sophomore Antonella Wilby, they did “a great job because the team was very coordinated.” Hot pink Team 696 t-shirts could be seen throughout the Los Angeles Sports Arena to support Clark’s robotics team, better known as the Circuit Breakers. The weekend was a success for the team as they placed second in the final match. The games were played between two alliances consisting of three robots. Before the quarterfinals, the top eight teams got to choose who would be a part of their alliance. If they succeeded, they would continue on with those alliances throughout the semifinals and the finals. The objective of the game was to place rings on a cylindrical structure with “Spider Legs” where the rings could be placed. There were three rows of legs all across the structure with eight on each row. The goal was to place as many rings on one row as possible. The scoring system was based on the number of consecutive rings on a row. The number of rings was then counted and two to the power of that number was the amount of points received. Another way the teams earned points was by lifting other robots on their alliance. They were then given points according to the height that the robots were lifted. If the robots were lifted 4 to 12 inches, the team would receive 15 extra points. If the robots were lifted 12 inches or higher, they would receive 30 points. The Circuit Breakers’ robot, “The Burd,” had a striking design that the team spent two weeks to come up with and spent two weeks to build. Its “wings” that drop down had a pneumatic cylinder that lifted the wings off of the ground. This technique led the team to win all of their qualifying matches. “The team this year has great communication and building [the robot] was definitely easier,” said Wilby.