The Bonny Eagle Robotics Team has qualified for the FIRST Robotics World Championship in St. Louis, Mo., April 22-25 after ranking 23rd in the New England District Championship held recently.

At the district meet in Worcester, Mass., the team competed with 60 New England teams and won the Judges Award for “a team whose unique efforts, performance, or dynamics merit recognition yet do not fit into any of the existing award categories”.

Bonny Eagle is one of seven teams from Maine that has qualified for the world championship.

Previously this season BERT placed second at the Pine Tree District competition and first at the UNH District Competition as well as winning the Team Spirit Award sponsored by Chrysler celebrating extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit through exceptional partnership and the 2015 Safety Animation Award sponsored by Underwriter’s Laboratories. This award recognizes the team that submits a short animated film that best promotes the team’s safety focus.

The team’s 40-second animation was selected from 198 other safety videos made by some of FIRST’s 2,908 teams worldwide and will be shown at more than 100 FIRST events internationally. The video was self-directed, created, and produced by the team’s student media production crew. View the short film at http://youtu.be/F_TOtTTV7MA.

The team’s fundraising goal is $42,000. All donations should be sent to Bonny Eagle Robotics Team, c/o Bonny Eagle High School, 700 Saco Road, Standish, Maine 04084.

Learn more about BERT at www.bert133.org or on Facebook. The team’s email is [email protected].