Lufkin HS robotics team prepares to head to state competition

LUFKIN, Texas (KTRE) - Lufkin High School’s PantherBots team gave their robot a rather intimidating name: Cobra. Student Ethan Cates said as of now, they are reworking the whole robot to advance their designs and coding.

“We have to replace all of the frames with thicker walls so they don’t break, because in our last event we did have some problems with that,” said Cates.

Last week they won the First in Texas competition in San Antonio which placed them as a finalist to compete against 80 teams in the state.

If they do win state, they move on to the world competition as they did last year, where they compete against 600 teams.

Lufkin ISD communications director Shelia Adams cheers on the sidelines as a supportive faculty member and parent watching the team compete.

“They take this, you know, these wires and all of this and create this amazing robot that they can take to the next level,” Adams said.

The team of 50 students took six weeks to design and build ‘Cobra’ before their first competition in January.

Student Abby Castano says one of the best things that comes from the team is making lifelong friends along the way.

“It doesn’t matter what event you attend. Everyone is just so together… we’re all here to win. We’re all here to be great and just have fun,” Castano said.

Student Ashley Galvan said robotics inspired her to go into engineering.

“We help prepare the future generations for beyond high school.”

The PantherBots will be traveling to Houston for state competition on April 5.

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