By: Jenny Kim
These students will be the first suspects should robots start to take over the world.
Hershey and Palmyra’s Robotics team, called the Krypton Cougars, or Team 2539, presented about their club on Hershey High School’s Community Day on April 29, 2016 through demonstrations and videos. This team works toward competing at the World Championships located in St. Louis, Missouri. Through sweat and tireless hours of hard work, the Krypton Cougars work as a close knit team to make their way up to the top.
The robotics competitions are sponsored and hosted by the Robotics organization, FIRST. Each year, FIRST comes up with a challenge that each robotics team must create a robot that can solve it. This year’s challenge was called “Stronghold”, where each team must create a robot that can shoot balls at a tower while going through a series of defense barriers.
According to team member Paige Beck, HHS sophomore, the robotics team spends around 6 weeks making their robot. The team meets every day from 6-9 PM, and on Saturdays, they meet from 9-3 PM.
“It’s a ton of effort, but joining the robotics team was the best decision I’ve ever made,” said Beck.
And all her team members agree. Bethany Thoryk, Palmyra student, who has been a member for three years, did not know what she wanted to do with her life when she first joined. She was hesitant at first, but now she can confidently say that she doesn’t regret a thing.
“We become a family, a family that works toward one goal…and that also has some fun on the side,” said Thoryk.
Along with forming close relationships, everyday the team learns something new. Beck, who has only started the team this year, could not tell the difference between a bolt or a screw when she first started. However, since every team member has a specific job to do, Beck can now feel confident about her tools and programming.
This information was all presented at their session on Community Day. The robotics team also brought their robot, which they let people from the audience control with video game controllers. This inspired so many people, in fact, mostly everyone who attended the session wanted to sign up to join the robotics team.
Inspiration is what FIRST is all about. According to FIRST, without science and engineering, the world cannot function. The organization’s goal is to encourage kids to learn about sportsmanship, professionalism, science, and to just have fun. The competitions are set so that they can prepare kids for the real world.
“The best part about FIRST is the inspiration for kids to learn,” said Beck. “For all we know, one of the kids could be the next Albert Einstein.”
Team member Connor Clary, Palmyra senior, is planning on pursuing his goal to become an engineer at Penn State. He wishes that people realize that science and engineering is essential. Leadership, patience, and dedication are only some of the qualities that come from being in this team.
Whether it’s inventing a super cool Iron Man suit or the machine to end all the problems, one can depend on the robotics teams of the world to solve it. Like they said in one of their videos, once one gets the taste of the power of knowledge, there is no going back
“It’s truly amazing to see how kids grow from immaturity to full out professionalism,” said David Walker, robotics team mentor.
