A club that requires communication, dedication, and precision shapes students for success. Though for many students, robotics is not just a club or team. It’s an environment where problem-solving meets passion. Robotics is bringing innovation and inspiration into our school system.
The Merrillville High School Radioactivity Robotics Team placed 7th out of 25 teams in the FIRST Indiana State Robotics Championship at University of Indianapolis on March 14. The challenge: pick up and launch 5-inch balls into a goal from different distances, which called for skilled design, programming, and instruction.
Junior Aydan Gabriel is the lead designer of the team.
“I decided to join because ever since I was young I’ve always been a builder and have always been creative. Doing robotics would allow me to express myself and express my ideas,” Aydan said. “I’ve learned more than just how to design or how to do complex math. I’ve learned how to connect with people and how to be more open minded. I was extremely shy when I was younger but now, after a few years of doing this, I’ve found myself to be very extroverted.”
Communication and teamwork has become important skills in growth of Senior programmer Jackson Moreland, and the success of the team as a whole.
“I’ve learned to work with other people a lot. So I have to be able to make the programs work with what other people want the robot to do and work with other peoples’ designs. It’s also a lot of communication,” he said. “When we are in a match, we have to talk a lot to be able to coordinate the two robots in the field and just work with other people. Just through the teamwork, it allows us to be successful.”
Senior driver Kennedy Wells has also grown through the communal and team aspect.
“I have grown in my social skills,” she said. “Having to work with teams and talk to different teams about what their robot can do has definitely increased my palette of speaking up and stuff like that. I just learned how to adapt to situations.”
With the success of the team, much like any other, comes challenges and struggles. Students juggle school, practice, and personal life.
“One day someone had to go in and code the robot, one day someone had to go in and build the robot. Then, I would just try to find time to drive the robot to get practice,” Kennedy said. “We have a group chat. We all just put in when we are available when we aren’t and come in when we needed to. I would come in after school, before school even sometimes and just get practice, so we all just try to find time.”
As well as placing in the state competition, the team has qualified for further competition in the summer.
“Our upcoming competition is in June and it’s a premiere event, which is what the top 9 teams go to. It’s teams from all around the world, it’s just a smaller version of worlds, instead of 300 teams, it’s 125 teams,” Kennedy said. “It will offer us a lot of connections because there are teams from all over the world. There’s mentors from all around the world, so it will allow us to communicate and get information from them so we can better ourselves and the team.”
Aydan is proud of the team’s growth this year.
“Our team connects very well,” he said. “This allows us to be open about ideas and other things that are important. Whenever we work together it feels like a normal friendly conversation instead of ‘business,’ which makes it easier to discuss our ideas.”
