Senior Jaden Hunter’s interest in robotics started in second grade when she participated in engineering projects and built robots.
“When I moved to the district, I looked for the robotics team,” Hunter said. “It’s always been my passion of mine.”
Now, Hunter is one of the many seniors and co-president of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Team #486, also known as the Positronic Panthers, the school-sponsored robotics team.
Hunter explains the teamwork challenges she faced in becoming a team member.
“I’ve definitely learned to work in groups more,” Hunter said. “Being able to divvy up tasks and make sure that the team operates well and efficiently, it’s definitely been a new hurdle for me.”
Despite winning numerous awards across various events, the robotics team faces many challenges, including maintaining membership and outreach to the student body.
“The team is so focused on building the robot that when it comes to getting people to join, we struggle a little bit,” Hunter said.
Aside from focusing on team activities, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to the loss of members.
“Our numbers [of members] were down because we didn’t have a chance to get word of mouth around the school,” robotics coach and adviser Mr. Page Brown said.
The prenotion bias about needing prior knowledge and experience to participate in the team has also affected membership numbers.
“I’ve heard the words ‘I’m not smart enough’ a bunch of times,” Hunter said. “There are several people on the team that didn’t know anything when they joined, [and] they have learned a lot.”
In place of expanding the team’s membership and outreach, leaders plan to connect with students and advertise around the school.
“We have been communicating with people who have shown interest,” senior robotics member Jacob Jurkech said. “Right now, we have a ton of freshmen joining the club.”
To generate student interest and outreach, the team created a robot that launches t-shirts and footballs, named the ‘Cheer Bot’, which was demonstrated at the season home opener for the Varsity football team on Friday, September 13.
“It’s just to try to get people excited about robotics and joining the team so it can go on,” senior robotics member JJ Bohr said. “A lot of people like air cannons and free stuff, so many people are excited to see it.”
This year, the team hopes to make it to the district level in the FIRST tournament they participate in.
“That has been our goal consistently, and we’re going to try to keep that up,” Jurkech said.
In January 2025, the team will be introduced to the competition in which they will have six weeks to design, build, and control a robot that meets the competition requirements.
“It’s a challenge to your team to figure out what the best way to compete in the competition and then execute building a robot that does that task,” Brown said.
In hopes of advancing into the regional competition this year and into future competitions, a strong underclassmen membership is vital.
“A more important goal is to get a strong group of underclassmen ready to go for robotics and have them experienced enough to where they can run the team once us seniors are gone,” Jurkech said.
Outside just hoping to win competitions, the feeling of pride and accomplishment can extend past the robotics team and be applied to any extracurricular activities.
“Go to school, work on a big project, and then leave feeling that you’re part of something,” Bohr said. “You accomplish something, and you’re just seeing that growth throughout the school year.”
