In Orlando they gained experience, but in New Orleans Team 456-Siege Robotics dominated.

A moment 18 years in the making, Team 456 claimed the first regional victory in team history Saturday at the Bayou Regional in New Orleans. The win earned the team a berth in the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston.

“A moment of disbelief,” team member Sam Greer said of the team’s reaction to winning. “It has taken us 18 years to reach this point. Seeing the final score pop up and showing that we had actually won it, it all kind of came in a rush and people got very emotional very quickly. I have to say I was one of those people.”

Team 456 is now a community team based at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center after originally starting at Warren Central High School in 2000. The team has won countless awards over the years and multiple offseason competitions, but has never claimed the title at an in season regional, despite multiple close calls.

“We’ve had for going on 18 years what we called the 456 curse or the slump,” lead mentor Chuck Dickerson said. “We have been so close so many times. We have been finalist lots of time and lost in the very end by a point or two. It has been a huge struggle for years. To finally see the victory and see the win this year has meant everything to this team.”

The team started this season at the regional in Orlando where they finished 13th out of 64 teams. That regional was just a tune-up though where they could work out the kinks, fine tune some code and get used to driving their robot with its dual drive-trains.

That experience paid dividends in New Orleans where they only lost one match in qualifying and earned the top seed and the first pick of alliance members going into the elimination rounds.

Each alliance includes three teams that compete together from the quarterfinals through the finals. All three members from the winning alliance earn a ticket to worlds.

“You’ve got to feel out what teams meet your needs,” team captain Shavan Manusukha. “We are a well-rounded team at this game. Your first pick is usually easy. We picked the best robot out there that can do the same thing as us if something happened to our robot or we face another team in eliminations that has the same kind of duo. The second pick is harder. That robot needs to cleanup the small aspects of the game.”

Team 456 partnered with Team Chaos from Picayune and Team Knightling Boltz from St. Gabriel, Louisiana. In the elimination rounds, the three-team alliance dominated the competition winning all three round of best two out of three matches in only two games.

After winning the semifinal match, Greer said they had already punched a ticket to worlds because one of the teams on the other final alliance had already punched its ticket and as the number one seed that berth in worlds would have passed to Team 456.

“We determined that yes we wanted to go to the championship, but not that way,” Greer said. “We wanted a blue banner that had the word winner on it to hang on our wall as well as our alliance members’ walls.”

The team also cleaned up in the judged awards winning the General Motors Industrial Design Award, the Gracious Professionalism Award and the Underwriters Laboratory Safety Award.

“We have done two in the past, but I don’t know any other time in the history of FIRST that a team has pulled off four awards —a win and three other awards — in one competition.  That spoke very highly of the team,” Dickerson said.

The team will now advance to world championships in Houston, Texas April 19-21 against more than 400 teams from the United States and Canada as well as Australia, Israel, Brazil and more.

“I think Houston is going to be an eye opening experience,” Greer said. “Our team has gone to help put on the event before, but this time we are going to be wearing 456 shirts instead of volunteer shirts. We are going to see a completely different aspect of it.”

Coming off their performance in New Orleans the team is confident they have a chance to be highly competitive in Houston.

“I am 100 percent confident that we can go into Houston and play just as well as any of these other teams from around the world,” Dickerson said. “Every year, I have known our kids should be there and be highly competitive there. This year they get their shot.”

For more information on the time and t see videos of their competition in New Orleans visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Team456/.