Robotics team prepares for Dec., Jan. competition

Lee (left) and Ahmed (right) work for the robotics team after school.

Alissa Burnette, Staff Reporter
November 9, 2015

Robotics team members junior Nate Lee and sophomore Hashaam Ahmed are currently preparing for their robotics competition that will happen in late Dec. and early Jan. Math teacher Geoffrey Estes is the instructor for the team.

“It allows students to see where they can use the math and science they’ve learned in a very applied setting, and it gives them satisfaction of using that math and science that they know and other engineering and design skills that they have,” Estes said. “They can see that end product and actually use that end product for something, so all that hard work and all the learning goes into some great robot that can do crazy stuff at the end, and I think that’s very satisfying.”

The robotics team offers students something to do after school that uses their skills in engineering, science, and mathematics. They meet every Monday and Friday until 4:30.

“Every year we have a different challenge, and it gives us something to do, some people don’t have a lot to do after school so some people come here for that, others just come for the challenge,” Ahmed said.

The team usually spends the time after school assembling robots and working together in close collaboration.

“My favorite part about being on the robotics team is building new robots,” Lee said.

The robotics team also has a variety of members.

“Most people see it as something a nerd would do or something like that. But, ever since seventh grade, I’ve been in the program, there’s been a lot of different types of people, and it’s usually a lot of fun altogether,” Ahmed said.

There is only one competition they participate in per year, and if they place they can move up from regional, to state, to world in the competitions.

“We do pretty good so I’m hoping we can get top 14 in regionals,” Ahmed said.

The students will be working on their robot until the competition this winter.

“I think that having the robot as the end product is sort of the icing on the cake, the inside of the cake is the most important part, which is how they learn to work together as a team, how they problem solve together, how they develop their end product, and they do it through an engineering process where they prototype, see if it works, if it doesn’t, tweak it, see if it works. So, you know, it’s a really great process for them to learn as a real world skills kind of process,” Estes said.