RIDGELAND, Miss.—A small group of seventh-grade boys in blue T-shirts sat on the floor in a spacious classroom at the Scientific Research facility in Ridgeland, Miss., focused on the small screws that attached a rolling track to a gear that would allow Team SCARLET’s robot to move. Piles of gears, wheels, metal rods, nuts, bolts, screws, and miscellaneous robot components of every description filled plastic buckets, boxes and bins.
