Weighing in at 340 pounds, Domata the robot sized up the day's worth of obstacle courses optimistically, knowing its fellow Santa Fe bomb squad members, Lt. Abram Anaya and Officer Scott Waite, were at the controls.

As Tuesday's Robot Rodeo at Los Alamos National Laboratory rolled on, Domata gleefully maneuvered over pipes, picked up and carried a pea-sized ball bearing over stairs and across barrels, and hit targets several yards away with a fire hose.

With fierce competition by teams from the New Mexico State Police, Los Alamos Police Department and the Los Alamos Haz Mat Team, Domata and his Santa Fe comrades knew they had to gain as many points as possible to kick off the three-day competition, which is in its second year at the lab.

So Domata couldn't disappoint, and didn't disappoint, as he finished off the afternoon rescuing a couple of injured firefighters.

Well, artificial injured firefighters.

"I'm very sorry about this Mr. Firefighter," Anaya's voice boomed from about 50 feet away, as Domata's robotic arm clamped down on the dummy fireman's leg and pulled, a move that would probably have broken the limb, Anaya explained later.

Dragging the fireman off the bottom of a ladder, Domata's arm slipped, dropping the dummy and knocking its hat to the ground.

"Awwwwww," Anaya echoed from the distance, as he manipulated Domata's cameras and control panel.

At that, Tom Nolen, the emergency preparation coordinator at Los Alamos and a judge at the competition, laughed.

"They're all very competitive," he said, adding in a real situation they would likely grab the firefigher quickly, breaking a limb to save his or her life and get the person out of a fire.

But Anaya, Waite and others at the competition came to learn and experience all that their robots can do, and a speedy rescue wasn't the first priority.

So after a quick conference between Anaya and Waite, the robot rolled back to the downed 150-pound dummy, grabbed its arm, twisted it and hauled it face down in the gravel to safety.

"One of the things this competition lets these guys do is be inventive," said Doug Tuggle, emergency manager at the lab and another judge. "It gives them an opportunity to see what works and what doesn't."

With eight years of experience on the bomb squad and working with bomb robots, Anaya has some serious skills, Tuggle added.

"He's a very good operator," Tuggle said. "He appears to be the most experienced robot operator we've seen today."

Anaya was a judge at the competition last year, but this year, he brought two other members of the Santa Fe Police Department's four-man squad to join in the fun and learn.

And after shifting Domata's arm to delicately pick up a tiny ball bearing, roll over several obstacles and drop it into a small plastic bottle, Waite said he certainly did learn a lot.

"The difficulty in the arm movement, and going up stairs, you don't think of a robot doing that," Waite said. "It's capable of some pretty intricate movements."

Domata goes out on every call with the Santa Fe bomb squad because it's always better to put a robot in harm's way than a person, Anaya said. "The whole point of this is never go hands-on with anything unless you have to," Anaya said.

In the past few years, Domata has communicated with a man threatening to blow himself up, investigated a bomb threat at Santa Fe High School and annoyed a suspect in a special weapons and tactics team situation, Anaya said.

"In the SWAT situation, the man had barricaded himself in with a rifle," Anaya said. "The robot has an attachment with a real bright light, and the guy said, 'Turn it off or I'll shoot your robot.' Somebody said, 'Go ahead,' and he did. He shot our robot."

Of course, the police could still see inside the house without the light, but Domata needed a few repairs after he took a direct hit.

"They fixed him up pretty quick," Anaya said, adding repairs and modifications sometimes make him want to trick Domata out — Santa Fe style. "It needs spinners," Anaya said with a laugh. "And some nice speakers, with a big fat woofer on top."

He also likes the notion of some neon blue lights under the body.

"Hey, this is Northern New Mexico," he grinned.

Chris Ory, a hazardous devices team member at the lab, said this is what the competition is all about, a little fun, a little training and a whole lot of hands-on experience.

Ory launched the competition in 2007 to help statewide hazmat teams and bomb squads gain experience using their robots. He used to train students how to use the robots at the Hazardous Devices School in Alabama.

"It's a competition, but it's also a learning experience," Ory said. "This robot is one of their tools, but they don't get to use it every day. So these obstacle courses teach them some skills. They get used to using different camera views, picking things up and all sorts of other scenarios."

Of course, the teams also come for bragging rights, and last year, a joint team of the Los Alamos Police Department and the lab's hazmat department took the trophy, Ory said proudly.

"We're bomb techs, so we like bragging rights," Ory said. "All bomb techs are Type A personalities — and I know that because I've been one for 30 years."

Ory disqualifies himself from the competition since he has so much more experience than team members.

Still, he refused to handicap the final outcome, which won't be announced until late Thursday he said. "I'm not going to call any favorites," Ory said. "We've got some really good teams. The scores are really close so far."

Despite that, Anaya said he knows who's going to win.

The Santa Fe Police Department, of course.

"Heck yes, we're going to take it," Anaya said.

Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.