AHS Robotics Club Presents Project To Rotary Club

The Wildcats Robotics Club blew the Rotary Club away this afternoon, as the high schoolers presented their project they hope will take them to World’s this year for a second time.

The Wildcats will be submitting their robot to a competition in Gaylord in March and another in Traverse City in April. If the students do well in both of those, they’ll go on to State’s the week after Traverse City, followed by World’s, which will take place in Saint Louis at the end of April.

Robotics Club Member Hailey Boyk says this club has given her and her teammates a chance to get connected with mentors around the community.

“Our school has a lot of sports teams, and Robotics lets us get involved with technology. We work with a lot of mentors in our community. We have 12 – 13 mentors in our community. Some are engineers; some are local business people. And it really helps us get involved with technical skills, and it helps improve our public speaking skills, our interview skills, and other life lessons like that,” said Boyk.

Hailey and her team have been working on building a robot for a game that they showcased for the audience today. The game involves 120 pound robots that throw a whiffle ball into a goal post that’s 8 feet off the ground.

The wildcats have been working tirelessly on the bots, as they call them, even looking forward to snow days as an opportunity to work on the project.

The students were happy to share their club’s success with the rotary club, but also explained that funding for their club comes mostly from grants, which wont be a sustainable source of funding for much longer. For this reason the wildcats are in search of community sponsors to sustain their club.