Senior RoboLions go out on a high note after starting program three years ago
At a VEX Robotics competition this winter, senior Powell Whitaker works with a robot that he and his partner, senior Mitchell Philipp, built earlier in the year.
Robots are technical machines that the average student probably doesn’t think about much on a daily basis. We know they exist and can perform complex tasks, but we can’t explain how they actually work. For members of the St. Pius X robotics team, however, not only do they know how robots operate, but they can build them, too.
The RoboLions began three years ago, when current seniors Michael Marcinko, Abby Craver and Powell Whitaker were interested in starting a team. That same year, science teacher Mrs. Brigid Bartholomai and math teacher Mrs. Connie Fish both had 8th grade sons who were interested in joining a high school robotics team, so they began looking for a teacher to sponsor a St. Pius program.
“God laughed,” said Mrs. Bartholomai, who ended up starting the team herself with Mrs. Fish.
Three years later, the team has tripled in size and qualified for their first ever state competition in February.
“The last competition was the most memorable because the teams did amazing, qualifying for state!” said Mrs. Bartholomai, talking about the Turning the Points Again VEX Robotics Competition at West Forsyth High School in January. The team won the judges award, competition runner-up, and competition champion.
In addition to Marcinko, Craver, and Whitaker, other seniors on the RoboLions team are Mitchell Philipp, Ben Lathrop, Nico Bartholomai, and Jameson Horton
“All the seniors plan to continue in college,” Mrs. Fish said. “They plan to major in either computer science, mechanical engineering, and any sort of engineering mostly.”
Whitaker said he’s enjoyed his time with the team and sees multiple benefits of competing with the RoboLions.
“Participating in a robotics program during high school will look really good on a resume,” he said. “Plus, it’s really, really fun, teaches programming, and is just really neat.”
The team participates in competitions hosted by VEX Robotics. VEX provides teams with a set of equipment and a task at the beginning of the season that they work on throughout the year.
“The kids are presented with a challenge, then they have to think about how they want to answer that challenge, design a robot, build it, then program it so that it actually does what the team wants it to do,” Mrs. Bartholomai explained. “Pretty cool stuff.”
For several days or weeks leading up to competitions, students work on their robots in groups of three to five people where everyone gets to contribute using their own skill sets. Sophomores Chloe Woods and Cody Nelson, for example, taught themselves how to code. Nelson even has a space in his house where the team can test their work.
Mrs. Fish joked that, “To prepare for the competitions we will pull all nighters.”
The focus of these events is sometimes less about competing and more about cooperation. The students pair up with groups from other schools because the robots always participate in pairs as they work their way through a series of competition rounds.
“The students kind of create and bring a marketing piece to the competition to pick what robots complement your robot to work with,” Mrs. Fish said.
Here is a video from VEX that gives more details about this year’s Turning Point game.
