BY JENN McDOWELL

Even the World Wrestling Federation couldn’t have put on a louder, more intense competition with match ups between heavy weights from all over New England.

Twenty-six teams from different towns in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut flocked to Manchester West High School on Saturday, Oct. 27, for FIRST’s annual River Rage.

The robotics competition, falling in between official seasons,  provides new members with an opportunity to get their feet wet and team veterans to further hone their skills. It is meant as a preparation buffer for upcoming regional and national competition.

Andrew Flood, 15, of Hooksett, joined Manchester West’s team this year as a sophomore to see what FIRST was all about.

Ed Forcier, the technical education teacher at West and one of the team’s faculty advisors, encouraged Flood to join.

“He wanted me to join last year, but it was too late,” Flood said, adding that he hopes to learn all about engineering and technical work as a team member.

Anna Turgeon, also a 15-year-old sophomore from Hooksett, said she joined West’s FIRST team after figuring out that the theater club didn’t appeal to her. At River Rage, she was excited to contribute to the team efforts in her first year.

“I got to test the robot and it was a lot of fun!” she said, adding that Forcier also encouraged her to join the team.

Forcier, one of the organizers of River Rage, said changes in technology since he began mentoring for FIRST teams 15 years ago have made the competition more exciting and different each year.

He said the more primitive robots were powered by radio-controlled motors and now, with digital technology, kids can write their own programs to put the robot on a 15-second autonomous mode.

“It’s pretty cool when it works,” Forcier joked.

At this year’s River Rage, a new spin was put on the old challenge.

Last year’s challenge for FIRST teams was to build a 130-pound robot that would place color-coded tubes on a rack in the center of the playing field. The game was similar to tic-tac-toe, with team members earning extra points for creating rows of tubes on the rack.

At this competition, teams were encouraged to don Halloween costumes, and to dress up their robots as well.

Also, one team member standing outside the playing field could toss the tubes onto the rack by hand.

The teams form alliances with each other after the eliminations rounds, with three teams to each alliance, and they get one collective score.

This year, an alliance composed of teams from Falmouth and Gorham, Maine; Berlin, Conn.; and Tewksbury, Mass.won the overall competition, but at FIRST, there are many winners.

Manchester Central’s alliance won for two robots, second and third place respectively.

Sophomore team member Amanda Lade, 15, was happy with the outcome and said she looks forward to a career in engineering using the skills she learned in FIRST.

Manchester Memorial senior Tommy McCarthy, 17, is a veteran FIRST member that became interested in middle school when he was on the FIRST Lego League.

The Auburn resident said he plans on going to school for broadcasting, but gets a lot out of being on Memorial’s FIRST team.

“We put in a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of work. We take pride in what we do,” McCarthy, also the team’s president, said.

Forcier said FIRST allows kids the opportunity to apply what they learn in class.

“Our focus is on the kids and the robot and what makes it all happen,” he said.