After a year of building, competing, and advancing their skills, the Highland High School robotics team is returning to the world championship for the FIRST Tech Challenge this week in Detroit, Michigan.

The Finger Tightans competed at Worlds last year because of a wild card draw, and engineering lead Nathan Butler shares how the team felt after that experience, “You know, there were a lot of different expectations. We had some people on the team that were gung-ho, ‘Yeah, we’re going to worlds this year. We went there last year learned a lot from it, we’re just going to do it.’ And then some other people that were like, ‘Well, we got to do a lot of work to get there, we want to make it past state.’ That was me, I was the one that said, ‘This is a lot of work to do it,’ but this is pretty awesome now that all that work that we’ve done has actually, finally paid off and we’ve earned our way to Detroit.”

This was the first year the team had ever advanced from the state competition, where they received the Think Award, and then later advanced from the super regionals, earning their way to Worlds. Butler says the team’s trip to Worlds wouldn’t be possible without the help of their sponsors and the Highland community.