Taking something that took hours of work into a ring to battle and be destroyed sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but this is the Robotics club’s specialty. The Robotics club, made up of students enrolled in two separate classes, puts together robots which they take to battle against robots from other schools. This year, after the departure of former advisor Mr. Jesse Gagich, the club is run by Mr. Brendan Wiatrak.
Not only was the club working under new advisor, but it was also faced with electing new leadership positions due to most of the members from last year no longer being in the club. Seniors Logan Larrick and Robert Valentine were elected by their peers for the positions of president and vice president, respectively. One of the biggest hurdles the club had to overcome was that they are made up entirely of first-time Robotics students, aside from lone returner, junior Sawyer Wahlenmayer. With new members and new leadership came an entirely different approach to the success of this year’s team.
On Thursday, March 7, the robotics team traveled to Robert Morris University for their first competition of the year. This competition, held by BotsIQ, was the preliminary round in which teams got their first taste of robot battles for the year before the larger competitions. While last year’s Robotics team did attend this competition, they were unfortunately unable to compete because they could not get their robot prepared in time. However, this year’s team was able to put their work to the test at this competition when they competed against Canon-McMillan High School, but they unfortunately fell to the opposing robot after not having enough time to complete their robot’s weapon. Though they lost in the first round, this still showed promising signs for the rest of the club’s season. Additionally, the team was able to learn from this competition, and they will likely have a better robot prepared for their next battle.
“My favorite part of the competition had to be seeing the other schools that had lots of money compete and seeing their bots get destroyed,” sophomore Leo Kaleugher said. Regardless of how large a school is or how much funding they have, they can still be defeated by smaller schools. This means that the playing field between small and large schools is still relatively level, and any robot can come out on top.
This first competition was a great chance for the Robotics students to get some more experience under their belts. Now, the club is focusing on creating even better battle bots for their upcoming competition. The team will head to PennWest California on April 26 to compete in their next matches. In the meantime, they are working extremely hard to prepare themselves for whatever challenge they may be faced with in the future. With their newfound knowledge and lessons, the team hopes to incorporate some new strategies and construction techniques for their next robot and their next battle.
“We are trying our hardest to maintain a timeline to ensure we get all aspects of our robot complete in time for our competitions,” Larrick said.