On the 28th of April 2007, the School Engineering had the honor of hosting the first ever Greater St. Louis Regional Botball competition. Eleven area schools participated in this landmark event: St. Mary's School, Hazelwood West High School, Edwardsville High School, Columbia High School, Ladue Middle School, Liberty Middle School, Lincoln Middle School, Highland High School, Parkway North High School, De La Salle Middle School, SIUE East St. Louis Charter School.

"The Botball competition encourages students to combine science, technology, engineering, and math to create autonomous robots. Students are given about seven weeks to design, build and program a team of mobile, autonomous robots as well as document their process on a weblog. Participants compete against each other on a 4 x 8 playing field in a fast paced, non-destructive regional tournament. The robots are student built and programmed to maneuver on the game board without the need for remote control." (Botball.org)

In this years competition robots were placed on an island. This island had huts, pineapples, leaves, a near-by ocean, and a volcano, whose eruption was imminent. Robots could earn points in several ways: they could collect pineapples and leaves and place them into their respective bins, they could shelter the huts and drag them to safety, and they could place ocean water on the collected pineapples and leaves to protect them from lava.

While the competition may sound daunting, the teams were up to the challenge. Students at the competition were constantly modifying their code and robots to compete at each round. Many times teams would change their entire strategy to give them an edge against their opponent.

The overall ranking of the competition placed St. Mary's School in first, Hazelwood West High School in second, and Edwardsville High School in third. These rankings were determined not just by these teams performance in the competition but also by the quality of their documentation and presentation about their robot.

The School of Engineering plans to host the Greater St. Louis Regional again next year. Anyone interested in competing is encouraged to contact Dr. Weinberg or www.botball.org for more information.