Taking on the role of underdog but carrying a nickname that sounds more like a group of menacing Caribbean Sea marauders, a group of nine middle and high school students found treasure in their first year as a robotics team.

Dread Pirate Robotics has a 19-1 record and capped their first season with a victory in the game segment at the FIRST Tech Challenge Alabama State Championships, held at Huntsville’s New Century Technology High School.

The booty for the upstart squad was a golden ticket to the world championships, April 16-20, in Houston. FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is a robotics competition in which student groups of up to 15 design, build, and program robots to compete in ‘alliances’ against other teams.

According to FTC’s website, the group aims to inspire youth to pursue science and help students develop problem-solving, organizational and team-building skills. Robots are built from a reusable platform powered by Android technology.

“It was pretty awesome to be able to win our first ever state competition,’’ Huntsville High sophomore team member Kolby Noworyta told the Huntsville Business Journal. “The big reason why we were able to win was because of how simplistic our robot was, because a lot of people had breakages non-stop because they overcomplicated things.’’

While the winning robot no doubt took ingenuity, the overall plan was the K.I.S.S. method—Keep It Simple Stupid. The team formed last summer, leaving a previous outfit because there were too many participants.

“Our main goal this year was to have inclusion, and then also to make sure everybody can do everything,’’ Noworyta said. “So that way, if somebody’s not there, somebody else can fill the gap. And our robot, we mainly wanted it to be very simple but efficient. So that’s why almost everything on our robot is 3D printed. So that way, it’s easily replaceable, and we don’t use anything that could break really easily.’’

Seven team members attend New Technology, one is at Huntsville High and another at Hampton Cove Middle School. The squad consists of eighth-grader Caroline, freshman Meave, sophomore Kolby and juniors Gavin, Kate, Franklin, Kyle, Brandt and Carlton.

Coaches, or mentors, are Chris Whited, Susanne Whited, Barbara Schantz, and Brian Mulac, who will help the Dread Pirates tweak their robot for nationals.

“We’re using the same robot,’’ Noworyta said. “We’re updating it to make different little critiques to it that we had errors with at the (state) competition. Just making everything faster.’’

While there is joy in the Owens Cross Roads/Hampton Cove area, where team members live, there’s a caveat: the invite comes with a price tag. The entry fee is $2,500, and the group and their families estimate that it will take $18,000 to ship equipment and cover all essential personnel for the trip to Space City, and they need financial assistance.

“Most FTC teams outside of Alabama have years of experience, including world-class competitors from Romania, Taiwan and Germany. But the Pirates aren’t just (going to nationals) to learn—they’re going to represent Alabama and compete.‘’

The Dread Pirates advanced to state by winning a qualifier, then topped a field of 23 teams to punch their ticket to Texas. Now, perhaps more riches await the team in the Lone Star State, which bills itself as “a motley crew of scallywags’’ in fitting with the FTC organization’s requirements of “finding an identity’’ as a community-based team, raising funds to meet goals and advancing an “appreciation for the STEM community.’’

For more information, visit Instagram at dreadpiraterobotics_25751_ftc. To support the team with a donation, visit their GoFundMe page.