Maple Valley high school team’s winning robot stolen from trailer

Some Maple Valley high school students are scrambling after someone stole their competition robot.

The Tahoma High School robotics team, Bear Metal, found out Sunday that the trailer carrying the champion “bot” was stolen, KIRO 7 reports.

The students are hoping the robot will turn up before the next competition on Saturday.

In the meantime, the team is going to spend the week getting its practice robot up to championship caliber.

The robot that was stolen was dubbed “Xcalibear.”

The team took home the championship last weekend at the FIRST Robotics Competition in Oregon.

At the competitions, robots score points by breaching opponents’ defenses and tossing balls through goals in the opposing team’s tower.

After returning from the competition, the Tahoma team’s trailer was stolen in Auburn. The trailer was later found near Pacific Raceways, but Xcalibear wasn’t inside.

Apparently, a few of the key components of the robot, the “collector” and the “shooter” parts were being stored separately, so they’ll be able to use those on their practice robot for this weekend’s competition.

The team members are worried that whoever stole their championship robot will take it apart and sell the parts.