A group of Tahoma High students are spending a lot of time after school, and they’re having the time of their lives.

The students are members of the Tahoma High Robotics Club known as Bear Metal and the members are building a robot for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition.

“It’s consuming my life, but in a good way,” Chad Hohn said, who is in charge of mechanics and fabrication. “It’s better than doing something not beneficial to your life.”

The members of the club range from sophomores to seniors and include graduates who come back to help and get back in on the fun.

FIRST, based in Manchester, N.H., was founded in 1989. The organization was founded to inspire young people in the field of science and technology.

The Tahoma High Robotics Club certainly showed plenty of inspiration after school Friday. The members were working to make the deadline to send the robot to the FIRST Robotics Competition Oregon Regional At Memorial Coliseum In Portland. The competition begins March 5.

Darren Collins, who is a Tahoma High physics teacher, started this club with a group of students three years ago, and it has been growing ever since. This year the club has about 40 members.

Each year the club members build a robot for the FIRST competition in six weeks. Last year the club won the 2008 Microsoft Seattle Regional competition and went on to the championship rounds.

Collins said the club advanced the first year as the leading rookie team.

This year the team is hoping to make the trip to the championship event April 16,17 and 18 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga.

“The competition is different every year,” Collins said. “The prompt (rule sheet) is sent in January and we have six weeks to design, build, test and ship the robot.”

This year the students designed a 5-foot-tall robot that will pull a trailer. Each robot will pick up balls and shot them into an opponent’s trailer.

Sean Messenger, a sophomore, said the robot was designed to “play on a low friction surface, simulating gravity on the moon. The opposing teams will try to get the ‘moon rock’ in the trailer. We think most will have a small, fast robot, but we made ours more well rounded.”

Alex Duncan, club president and a senior, said last year the team expected to do well and this year the “expectations are high.”

Hohn said the strategy this year was to build a second identical robot. While the first robot is shipped the members can continue to work on programing and practice for the competition.

Collins said the competition is as exciting as any sporting event he has attended.

“We get what we celebrate,” Collins said. “We are celebrating science.”