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Shelby Robotics Club at Shelby Junior High School is traveling to Houston April 28 to compete in the FIRST World Championship competition.
Nate Paul, who has been coaching the squad for five years and is currently the lead coach, said the team has been in existence since 2012 and is made up of junior high students from throughout Utica Community Schools.
The club typically carries two middle school teams per season; 7252 Vicious Volts and the 7253 Raging Robots. The 7253 Raging Robots, a team of 13, earned an invite to the world championship competition this year. The club meets three days a week to design, program and build robots. Since early September, the team has built two robots — one earned them the invite to the world competition and one that they will compete with at the world competition.
The robots are about 18 inches by 18 inches. The team went to two qualifying competitions in November and then received an invitation to the state championship, which took place in December.
Then, on April 28, the team will fly to Houston to compete in the world championship. The team has been building its second robot since January.
“The students have insisted upon designing and building a new robot that they think will compete at a higher level,” Paul said. “Myself and the other coaches have, you know, we’ve collected enough data. We have enough confidence that this new robot will perform better than the one that they had in the fall.”
He added building the robot is a multi-part process that involves students in a variety of ways. Some students work on the software for the robot, others work on the computer-aided design (CAD) and another group assembles the robot.
“Having that experience, you know, as a middle school student go towards your future high school plans or your college plans or your career … this is all good stuff leading up to a path for them to go down in the future,” Paul said. “Not all these kids have had a chance in the past to play baseball or be involved in sports, but to be involved in this activity gives them an opportunity to work on a team with other students.”
Paul remarked students are excited to compete at such a high level.
“We’re traveling to a different state to compete at a very high level and I just think there’s a lot of kids who are excited to do that. Those same kids are very excited now that they’ve been working on this second robot, this new robot. They are excited to see how it performs against this really good, you know, competition we’re going to see next week,” he said.
Aside from the excitement for the competition, though, Paul said the students are also particularly excited to travel together and stay at a hotel, especially because it has a pool.
“We’re traveling as a team, we’re all staying in the same hotel … the kids are probably going to go and play in the pool after we’re done,” he said.
Paul coaches the team alongside Fred Householder, who’s been with the team for two years, Bill Manhart, who’s been with the team for four years and James Currie, who’s been with the team for eight years.
Aside from building robots, the teams also adopted a family for Christmas this year, packed and donated hygiene kits, made fleece tie blankets for homeless teens and demonstrated robotics at a senior senior, school science fair, homecoming parade and a trunk-or-treat event.
Paul added they also mentored a rookie all-girls team that advanced to the Michigan State Championship.
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