By Sam Campbell

Covid hit, meaning the middle school robotic team could not meet in person to make robots, so the club disbanded. WRONG!! While Mr. and Mrs. Mause, the heads of the robotics team, considered taking a gap year, they decided rather to push through the obstacles and have a fantastic year.

Mr. Mause commented that “In most years, the team builds a robot and we compete against other schools in competitions. With the pandemic, though, the team was unable to meet in person to build a robot this year. Instead, we used VEXCode VR to learn to control a virtual robot using the Python programming language.”

The team could not meet in person, but they found a way to continue building robots! One challenge “the team really enjoyed was programming an underwater robot to autonomously pick up trash from a virtual coral reef.” In a normal robotics club setting limited time and resources prevents such activities. “Some of the team members discovered a real passion for programming, and had an awesome year.” This online format has allowed the team to explore different forms or robotics, and also stress the importance of programming.

So even though the team lost a lot of fun and interesting aspects of robotics to Covid this year, why were they able to still have an awesome year with online programming? It is because programming, building, and troubleshooting are the basics and still available online. The team lost some physical aspects of robotics, but strengthened their knowledge in core principles.

One of Mr. Mause’s favorite parts is “Troubleshooting” because “Robots are complex systems, and things may not always behave as we expect. Getting to the bottom of an issue is where the real learning happens.” And the team did exactly that. Instead of taking a gap year or shrugging this year off as a useless filler year, they improved their knowledge and became better prepared for the next year.

So why should you join The Middle School Robotics Team? Mr. Mause’s response: “We’re all consumers of technology. The robotics club is a chance to understand how things work and learn to create new things. We’ll be building almost an entirely new team next year. For any middle-schooler, come check us out; no experience is necessary. In particular, I would like to encourage any girls who might be curious about robotics or programming to give it a shot.  I know from professional experience that the lack of women in technology is a very real problem.”

The club is led by parents Mr. and Mrs. Mause who have been the heads of the team for 3 years. The team is made up of their son Brian and 4 other boys. The group is small, but has high hopes for the future. When the team starts up again in the fall, they plan to start building robots again and participating in the tournaments. They plan to participate in one winter competition, and three between January and March. With high hopes and greater experience among the obstacles, the team is more than ready for the coming year.