GREENVILLE — The Pitt Pirates, a First Robotics Competition team, competed against 54 teams at the NC Regional FRC Championship on Saturday and came home with the Chairman’s Award for best all-around team, the top prize of the competition.

The award advances the team to the First World Championship in St. Louis in April.

Competing since 2008, under the coaching of Bill McClung, the Pirates team — consisting of 48 students, six mentors and a dedicated group of volunteers and parents — is one of several such teams in eastern North Carolina.

FRC is the high-school level First Robotics program. The program requires a new robot to be designed and built each season during a six-week timeframe, with additional hours going into planning, promotion and competition. Despite a growing interest in FRC, only about 50 students are selected to be one the final roster for the Pirates. Student members work in specialized groups focused on design/CAD, engineering/build, safety, programming, marketing/fundraising and competition scouting.

This season, two Beaufort County students joined the team. Their father and mentor for the design/CAD team, Jeremy Peang-Meth, said the program is only limited by the number of mentors available to help.

“There is plenty of interest from the kids, which is fantastic,” said Peang-Meth. “We desperately need more parents and more figures in the community that can actually help mentor the team.”

According to Peang-Meth, the team members meet every day and the building phase of the program is very intense. Once the FRC releases the competition details, some time after New Year’s Day of each year, the students have six weeks to produce a completed robot — from scratch.

“This is an amazing experience for the kids,” Peang-Meth said. “One of the key features of the first competition is understanding gracious professionalism. It can integrate itself into the way you compete.”

Peang-Meth went on to say how this aspect of the competition promotes working together, even with other teams. During competition, circumstances arise in which teams may be compelled to solve problems through alliances with other teams.

The Pitt Pirates can be reached online at www.pittpiratesrobotics.com. Potential new teams may also learn more at USFIRST.org.