The following story was written by members of the Edmonds Heights K-12 FIRST robotics team about their recent inter-league competition in Tacoma, during which they qualified to move on to the state competition. FIRST robotics is a robot building challenge that brings together students from around the world in grades 7-12 to build robots.
The 3805 Atomic Robotics is a team from Edmonds Heights K-12, an ALE (alternative learning experience) school in Edmonds. We are made up of 14 unique, dedicated and skilled middle and high school students, three amazing coaches, and unfortunately no alumni mentors this year. As per the values of FIRST, our coaches provide us with advice, time and instructional support, but they have a “hands-off” policy, so that the students can learn as much as possible. We always have a handful of rookie members. This year nine of our members were new to FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge), so we put a lot of focus into skill building.
We felt proud when we advanced to State because of all the energy, time and effort we invested into the robot. We were also excited for all the ways we could improve the robot in the short span of two weeks, but we dreaded how much more work we knew we would have to put in.
Our main goal this year was to advance to State, and now that we have, we want to go to Worlds. Our long-term goals are to learn as much as we can while we are in FTC so that we can pursue careers in engineering fields in the future.
We have accomplished a lot this season, not only in terms of the robot, but also in outreach, teamwork, and experience. Although there are many things we want to add to the robot and improve, we are proud and enthusiastic about what our future holds.