Pictured in the picture above is Zachary Rios, Iram Romero, Gabriel D'Ammassa, and Lucca D'Ammassa
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — The Deming High School Robotics Team, Team Thundercats, powered their way to a 2nd place overall finish at the New Mexico BEST Regional Robotics Competition on October 18, 2025 at New Mexico State University. The event brought together some of the brightest young minds in engineering and technology from across the state — and Deming’s Team Thundercats was able to compete at a high level.
Over several weeks, the Thundercats designed and built a robot capable of picking up raw materials, assembling them into products, and sorting them by type and color to meet the factory’s production goals. The team relied on engineering design principles, coding logic, and rigorous testing to refine their robot’s performance.
This year’s competition theme, titled “Factoids,” challenged teams to design, build, and program robots to build a robot which could be used in a pair of AI Software systems. The team would have to develop a neural net and create connections in order to train artificial intelligence with "Factoids". Only true facts could be entered into the neural network to earn points. The team could earn points by adding neural network tiles(Styrofoam tiles) and adding true factoids to the neural network system. The robot could gather items from the playing field to add to the neural network and manipulate objects on the field to earn points.
The Thundercats’ robot featured a device that could reach the "True Factoid" that was available on the middle tower of the field. It could rotate back to be a legal configuration at the beginning of the match and then reach out an extra 10 inches in order to move the middle tower true factoid close enough for the claw to grab the item. Then the robot could place the item in the neural network. The robot was also able to lower a ramp in order to earn points. The team averaged 265 points per match and was able to win 2nd place in a close match in the finals.
The team was awarded the Founders award for creative design for their innovative design of their robot and the continued performance throughout the day.
