Consider it a varsity sport for academics.

The Battlefield robotics team competed against 63 other elite squads Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Richmond at the FIRST Robotics Competition regional tournament, taking second place overall at the Siegel Center as part of an alliance with other schools.

For the second straight regional competition, Battlefield earned the Engineering and Inspiration award. The first one won by BHS in Washington, D.C. qualified the Haymarket team for an appearance at the FIRST Lego League world championship April 27-30 in St. Louis.

The Team 1885 ILITE squad, as its referred to on campus and in competitions, consists of several subteams, including those for building, programming, business, electronics and mechanical manipulators. Battlefield exited the qualifying rounds of the Richmond tournament in first place with an 8-1 record and a composite score just above two other teams with the same record.

Essentially, Battlefield earned extra points for defeating quality opponents instead of simply going up against schools it could clobber.

"A match where you win 56-0; it isn't as good as where you might win 56-54," said Battlefield parental volunteer Alice Riley. "If you win and you had good competition... that's what (judges) want to see."

She also noted that the team did not tally up any major fouls that resulted in yellow or red cards, meaning the team played a relatively clean tournament, maxing out in one game at 113 points.

The competition was set up in a series of three events. During the "autonomous" round, the pre-programmed six-wheel robot had to act independently of its operators and place yellow rings on pegs in order to earn points.

Afterward, the robot operators tried to place tubes on the scoring racks. The higher the rack, the more points it was worth. Battlefield's machine could reach up to 9 feet high once both of its arms extended.

As time wound down, the robot could then send out a "minibot" - a smaller robot - to climb up a poll and score some quick points.

During the final match, a malfunction in the main robot's deployment of its minibot ended up giving away the title to an alliance team made up of schools from New Jersey and other areas.

That error cost Battlefield's alliance, which included Mills Godwin of Hernico and Menchville of Newport News, a shot at 15 points and resulted in a 94-80 loss, one game after falling 90-65 when one of the other school's minibots failed to launch.

According to senior robot builder Andrew Riley, deploying the minibot is one of the most difficult aspects of the three-part competition. Oddly enough, it wasn't until that final match when Battlefield's minibot deployment actually failed, which had been an improvement from the Washington event.

"We didn't really change anything, but we were able to take what we learned in D.C. so were able to figure out a way to make our deployment better so it worked better than it in D.C.," he said.

A minibot failed to deploy for one of Battlefield's alliance partners in the first match of the finals while the "Robocats" -- a take on the school's Bobcats mascot -- had their own issue in the second game of the best-of-three series.

Senior drivers Nick Nelson and Kyle Missar remotely operated the main robot during each head-to-head match-up under the guidance of mentor Jesse Knight, who offered strategy tips and receiving scouting data from other members of the team.

Nelson steered while Missar manipulated the machine's functioning abilities like lifting and placing objects. Riley said the drivers performed better than in Washington, when Battlefield exited the qualifying rounds with a 14th seed.

He emphasized that their confidence appeared to surge as they performed better throughout the day, all while improving at "hanging the tubes on the rack."

Senior programmer Jacob Laverty mentioned it helped that the team improved mechanical failures that stemmed from the Washington competition when, for example, sprockets were misaligned.

"I would be comfortable with saying we didn't break a chain in Richmond," said Laverty. "That was very different from D.C. In D.C., we were breaking chains left and right."

With St. Louis being the final stop on the calendar for Battlefield this season, the team is still courting sponsors and donors to help with travel costs, which run in the thousands of dollars. As far as the other teams go though, Laverty said it's hard to know exactly gauge the competition but he knows that it's going to be tough.

"There's no slack there," he said, later adding, "I'm hoping that we'll do well. .. We'll be able to be competitive."