On February 7, Powell High School [PHS] robotics teams 3188 and 3189 were invited to attend the world championship held in Houston, TX.
The pair of teams has held the opportunity to travel to Houston for the past four years, a massive accomplishment for any FTC [FIRST Tech Challenge] team, let alone one from Powell.
“[Going to worlds] was pretty cool, not gonna lie,” senior and 3188 member Jacob Harms said. “I do feel really lucky to have gone to Worlds three times. That’s such a rare opportunity for teams to go once, let alone three.”
Being a part of robotics for as long as they have, senior members of 3189 have been able to implement the skills they’ve learned to improve their bot year after year. This year, the team was able to be nominated for best FTC team for three months out of the season, being ranked 13, 24, and 22, consecutively.
“I think we improved in a variety of ways [from where we started],” senior and 3189 member Alan Crawford said. “We were always super consistent. That always allowed us to be more reliable and durable during competitions. I think we carried that into worlds and allowed us to continuously improve until we were at the top level of teams.”
Along with the season ending, so do the careers of many seniors who have been with the club for years.
“The robotics club teaches you a lot of good skills,” senior and 3189 member Dallin Waite said. “Truly, some of my greatest friendships have come from robotics.”
The seniors of 3189 in particular have been with the high school club since 8th grade, having had the opportunity to compete at the high school level back in middle school.
“They’ve done well, because they’ve started to venture into things that we don’t normally cover,” Robotics teacher and Head Coach Mr. Joel Hayano said. “They took a lot on themselves. They went above and beyond. They worked on their robot all summer long, they worked on their base, and they worked on it all winter. They put in a lot of time and effort, more than anyone else ever has.”
Throughout their time at robotics, seniors have been able to compete at worlds numerous times each, with the most recent being this past April, meeting with the Governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon when he visited Powell High School on May 5.
While being able to meet all sorts of new people, robotics has also helped to strengthen friendships between teammates, with many visiting each other’s houses, throwing parties for one another, and staying late into the night playing pool football.
Though the senior class might be graduating, it’s by no means the end of their engineering and creative careers, with many of the graduating class going to college to pursue jobs in the lucrative field.
“[Robotics] helped by giving me experience with Fusion 360 and reiterating [robot] designs and getting a taste for creating and designing my pieces altogether,” Harms said. “So, I’m going into the biomedical field to help people. Robotics helped me be a part of the team, to listen to people. It’s a lot better being part of a team that works together.”
With so many seniors leaving, it isn’t to say that the club won’t be a knockout in the future. Many underclassmen are ready to take the reins from their predecessors and see what can be brought to the club in the coming seasons.
“I think [the underclassmen] will do well,” Crawford said. “I think [our graduating members] will try to leave some resources that we found super helpful, and [the underclassmen] have been learning with us for a long time now. I think they have what it takes to do very well. The outlook is very positive.”
Now that the senior class is leaving, members are left reflecting on memories the club has helped nurture and the people who helped them along the way.
“The biggest would be just how grateful I am to Mr. Hayano for the opportunity to even participate in robotics,” Crawford said. “The fact that we have this program here is super amazing, it’s not an opportunity everybody has. That’s very important. Also, just to build all these awesome robots and friendships under the leadership of Mr. Hayano, all the growth we’ve had as a group, is super awesome. It’s an experience that I’ll never forget.”
