This story was originally published in The Sylva Herald, March 16 edition
Robots are taking over Smoky Mountain High School.
The Academic Robotics Team will be competing for the first time since the start of COVID-19 at UNC Asheville from 10:30 am until 4pm Saturday, March, 19.
A student-designed and built robot called the “FROGBOT” will have the challenge of moving, shooting a ball into a goal, and being able to climb.
The Academic Robotics Team at SMHS has been around for five years, managed by parent Larissa Miller and SMHS science teacher Ty Dengler. It has students work with the design, building, coding and 3D printing of the robot they build.
Consisting of 12 students on the team, the robot itself has to be built for a specific purpose, and it has to be finished in eight weeks.
The team is part of a worldwide organization called FIRST, made to educate K-12 students and prepare them for the world of STEM. It has programs like The Lego League that introduces STEM to children early in their education.
Taleigh Verrault, a senior at SMHS said that so much more goes into a robot than just physically building the robot.
“A lot of times you see the robot and you’re like whoa, this is what the team is about but it’s about more than that,” Verrault said. “You’ve got the coding, you’ve got the building, the designing, the public relations and all of that.”
The supplies used to build the machines consist of scrap parts, new parts, and even pieces created from a 3-D printer by the students.
Building the frame and the wheels of the robot is the first step, and there are several changes to the design of the robot until the final product is made.
Dengler likes to see what the students come up with and watch them make their vision come alive.
“I like the problem solving and designing with the kids,” he said. “It’s really neat to see them develop an idea and go from idea, to paper, to reality. We have really talented kids doing really amazing things.”
If they win the FIRST competition on Saturday, the students will go to the state competition at Campbell University. There they could be chosen as one of the 10 teams that will compete in an international FIRST Championship in Houston, Texas.
