Robotics: An Electrifying Opportunity

by Ben Kouchnerkavich

UPDATE 3/19/13- Holland High School's Robotics team will be partaking in their second competition this weekend. This could even end up being their last competition for the season. The competition will take place at the GVSU Allendale fieldhouse on March 22 from 11 AM to 7 PM, and on March 23 from 9 AM to 5 PM. If you are unable to make it, you can watch the live stream of the competition here. When the stream is live, you should see another link on that page entitled "West Michigan Robotics Competition." 

Thanks to Tyler Nottingham for providing this information.

ORIGINAL STORY-

Holland, Mich.-- “It’s a good opportunity to learn about leadership, and robots that can play games.”

That’s how Holland New Tech junior Tyler Nottingham describes Robotics.

After his brother and sister participated in the program, Tyler, who had not been in any high school clubs previously, decided it would be a pretty interesting thing in which to participate.

“Robots playing games sounded generally cool [to me],” he said.

The first year that Tyler was in Robotics, they were just having a good time, but weren’t really serious about competing against other schools. That changed, however, when Tyler went with his family to a Robotics competition, which he thought was amazing.

“[I liked seeing] how complex the robots actually are,” he said, “and [it was] cool to see high schools competing there.”

That was when Tyler got genuinely interested.

Tyler has been on the design team for the past 3 years. This earns him the title of “Veteran Student.” He is now the co-leader of the design team along with Michelle Baker. The design team isn’t submitted for awards, but it is a very important part to getting the robot done on time. And speaking of time, there’s only 6 weeks to get the robot completed.

“Mentors did most of the design last year,” admitted Tyler. “But it was all student-driven this year. Students got it 100% completed on time. It was an amazing, fun year.”

Tyler recommends joining Robotics to anybody.

“It’s an amazing program,” he continued, “especially if you want a future in engineering or any leadership role. It’s one of the best things to do if [engineering is] your career goal.”

But it’s not just designing, building, or programming robots. There’s also a marketing team, which holds fundraisers among other things.

“There’s something for everybody,” Tyler said.

The web site for Robotics has not been updated in about a year, so they could use some help in that area.

“Robotics is a club that is not just about the robot,” Tyler said. “It’s about working as a team to accomplish a goal in 6 weeks. No one has gone out of the program regretting it. Everybody’s said it’s amazing. Some wish they would have participated in it earlier.”

The first competition this year is in Gull Lake, and the second one is at Grand Valley State University in Allendale. Times are not official yet. If you’re interested in joining, or if you want to be notified when times are released, contact Tyler Nottingham here, or at Holland New Tech.