Robotics teams from Philomath and West Albany high schools and a mid-valley Scout group are headed to national competition after earning honors at the Pacific Northwest Regional FIRST robotics competition last Saturday in Portland.

The Philomath team won the Regional Chairman's Award, the event's highest honor, which gives the team an automatic berth at the national competition April 15-17 in Atlanta. The team also was honored for its software programming.

West Albany's team won the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship Award and was part of a three-team "winning alliance," in which top teams can choose other teams to compete with against other alliances for the championship. The alliance win gave the team a ticket to the national convention.

A Scouting team, Venture Crew 308, made up of mid-valley students from schools including East Linn Christian Academy, Sweet Home High School, South Albany and West Albany high schools, also is going on to nationals. The team won the Imagery Award, the Rookie All-Star Award and the Highest Rookie Seed Award.

Nearly 40 teams from Seattle to San Francisco competed in the regional contest, which involves a challenge to build a robot that best carries out the objectives of the competition.

A team from Corvallis High School won the DaimlerChrysler Team Spirit Award and an entrepreneurship award. Crescent Valley High School of Corvallis won the regional Autodesk Visualization Award. South Albany High School finished 19th in the contest.

Doug Edmonds, the coach of the Philomath team, and Bill Buskirk of Albany each won the FIRST Outstanding Volunteer Award for their efforts. Buskirk was chairman of the regional event.