The Robotics team has started off their season off with a bang. With only six weeks to build the robot, Coach Joyce Gilmore has the team working hard to prepare for their March competition.

“We are assigned a task and a game the robot has to play at the beginning of January and the game is different every year so we start working on the robot immediately,” Gilmore said.

Gilmore noted that both the makeup of the team and the competitions are unique to robotics.

“It’s a full district team with students from the Freshman Center, BSSHS, and BSHS,” Gilmore said, “There are around 75 teams in the Kansas City Metro area that we compete against locally but, we compete against everyone worldwide, like China and Israel.”

Once they get rolling with practices and competitions, their season is fairly intense.

“It’s usually a practice day and 2 competition days and it’s usually Thursday-Saturday and we compete in March and April,” Gilmore said.

The competitions can be rigorous, with an added challenge being that  “teams” don’t stay the same throughout.

“When we are competing, its 3 robots against 3 and then they switch it all up, so someone can be on your side of the field and then next round they are on the opposite side,” Gilmore said.

Senior Johnny Little is in his third year of participating in robotics.

“There are different sections on the team.I’m a builder,” Little said “I get to build the robot so I work with different metals and motors and everything that goes inside the robot,” he added.

According to Little, the robotics team is more than just a group of people; collaborating actually brings them all together in a cohesive friendship.

“It’s really fun just to work together, get the robot done and accomplish something so great. It’s something I look forward to–especially competitions. It’s fun and I made a lot of very good friends on the team and other teams,” Little said.

Little expressed that the intensity and stress of practices and competitions are definitely worth it.

“I would definitely suggest joining the team because it’s a lot of fun and you make a lot of good memories,” Little said.

Robotics has two upcoming competitions: 

• March 21-23 – Greater Kansas City Regional at Rockhurst High School
• April 4-6 – Central Missouri Regional at Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, MO