The Mathews High School Robotics Team, known as Rocket Sauce, is well into the 2014 FIRST build season and is off to a good start with a design laid out for its new robot.

For this year’s challenge, called Aerial Assist, the team is building a robot that can throw a 2’ diameter exercise ball. Aerial Assist is played by two competing alliances of three robots each on a flat 25’ x 54’ foot field, straddled by a truss suspended five feet above the floor.

The objective is to score as many balls in goals as possible during a two-minute, 30-second match. The more alliances score their ball in their goals, and the more each team works together to do it, the more points each alliance receives. Read more at www.usfirst.org/ roboticsprograms/frc/2014-game.

The Mathews team of nine students, many of them rookie members, has incorporated home-schooled students this year. They meet at the Mathews Boys & Girls Club every day af...