DULUTH, Minn. -- For eight weeks, the Duluth Denfeld Robotics team worked towards a goal that had never been reached by their program.

Successful use of "vision processing" had never been accomplished by the Hunters, but they had every intention of changing that.

They eventually completed their robot named Luma, standing over three and a half feet tall, capable of gathering launching foam balls.

With the element of visual processing, Luma was able to locate a strip of tape on an elevated surface, and automatically adjust its aim.

"Vision processing has been a part of FIRST for a long time, they always put reflective tape onto the field to be able to lock on," said senior Nick Miller.

"We're definitely not the first to do it, but this is the first year that our team has been able to utilize it effectively."

The team fund-raised their own money to construct Luma, in some cases reaching out to local businesses for support.

Their success landed them the "Engineering Inspiration Award" at the Lake Superior Regionals, advancing them to the FIRST Championships in Detroit, Michigan.

"Kind of an interesting system I thought, we had a conveyor system running from the front to the back where we had a turret up on the top, and we would sit behind one of the game elements, and we would auto-lock onto the target, and be able to shoot across the field fairly accurately into that goal," said senior Brandon Jahn.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the event before they even had a chance to compete.

Although the team of more than 20 members was disappointed, Miller said that he'll carry his high school robotics experience with him as he moves onward in his career.

"I've been in sports my whole life and I've never felt that great at it, and when I was at robotics, I really felt like that was my area. Just being able to do that, and knowing that I'm doing something that I'm good at was really cool."

Both Miller and Jahn plan to pursue Computer Science after high school.

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Denfeld Robotics run halted ahead of FIRST Championships - KBJR 6