The robotics team will participate in UIL competition Saturday at Trenton High School. In this contest, they will go head-to-head against other robots in prelims, a wildcard round, and finals, if they make it.
“This year’s team has been working extremely hard in order to produce a competitive robot,” robotics team sponsor Duane Walton said. “I admire their dedication to the process and have enjoyed seeing them come together as a team that works well together. They possess a lot of creativity and perseverance.”
The students are required to design and build a robot that performs specific tasks tailored to the game. They are also required to keep an engineering notebook about the process of the production of the robot.
“The thing I love most about robotics is that it is the culmination of a group of peoples’ ideas, designs, and previous experiences,” junior Kathleen Goodwin said. “I think that robotics is a field where everyone can learn from each other and benefit from the best each person on the team can offer. I love the teamwork aspect of the program. In order to be successful, we need each other and are accountable to each other.”
They also create a marketing presentation to go along with the robot from the perspective of a company manufacturing and selling the robot. They began preparing everything Sept. 3 and will work toward advancing to other competitions.
“I think that people should not be discouraged from joining robotics or any of the engineering classes because they think they are not smart enough or the class is too hard,” Goodwin said. “You are constantly being challenged with new problems, but you have a whole group of people who are working to solve it, just like you. I feel like we all have something to contribute to our engineering class or robotics team and we work through the challenges in a supportive environment.”