BY JUSTIN MARSTELLER
Staff Writer

Most students take days, or even weeks, to adjust to the start of a new school year, but that was not an option for Baldwin’s Robotics Club.

From the first week of school, this club was preparing for its first competition, which was held Nov. 30.

“The students met in third period, every day, and after school every Thursday,” club sponsor Brad Schulte said.

All of this practice paid off for these eight students, as they placed fifth overall in the VEX competition, which took place at the Sarah Heinz House.

“We had a very good robot, but the other teams’ robots were just a little bit better,” team leader and two-year robotics club veteran Brandon Blackburn said.

To achieve this rank, the club’s robot was required to overcome a variety of obstacles, which ranged from the robot passing over a two-inch bump to scoring in a miniaturized version of basketball. These requirements forced the robotics club to be creative in their designs.

“I saw the students troubleshoot and overcome problems,” Schulte said.

What seems easy to a person — like walking over a two-inch bump — can be incredibly difficult for a robot. The club went through more than 25 redesigns and encountered numerous problems before a final robot could be decided on.

“We came together as a team, and if there was a problem, the team would work together in order to figure it out,” Blackburn said.

One significant problem that the club had to overcome came during the competition, where they were forced to switch from a hardline remote control to a wireless one. The club was able to make this alteration relatively quickly, but it still added stress to the already intimidating environment of the competition.

The club has been competing in VEX for three years now, but this is the first year they will enter a BattleBots competition. The members are already drafting a robot for this intimidating event, since the competition is in April.

After three years building competitive robots, club members feel confident about BattleBots, but there is still a lot to be done, according to Schulte.

Blackburn agreed.

“We are a little rushed, but I think we’ll be fully prepared in time,” Blackburn said.

This preparation is almost entirely reliant upon the students’ desire to do so, since the Robotics Club is almost entirely driven by their commitment to the project and competitions.

“We design the robot. It is on us to fix any mistakes,” Blackburn said.

“We are newcomers with this, but I have a lot of confidence in our team. We’ll have a great year and I’ll be proud of us no matter what rank we get,” club President Steve Evanovich said.