Robotics
By Tristan Butts and Tristan Libby
October 4, 2023
Over the past several years Lincoln County High School has had a successful robotics program, even making it to the World Championships in 2021.
Robotics has a competition team as well as a regular class that is just for fun during the school day. Students practice most days after school; most of the time their main practices are on Wednesdays and Saturdays. This robotics program similar to most other sports starts in middle school with students having the option to participate from fifth through twelfth grade.
First Robotics Competition is an international high school robotic competition. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work during a six-week period to build robots capable of competing in that year's game. Robots complete tasks such as scoring balls into goals, placing inner tubes onto racks, hanging on bars, and balancing robots on balance beams. The game, along with the required set of tasks, changes annually. While teams are given a kit of a standard set of parts during the annual Kickoff, they are also allowed and encouraged to buy or fabricate specialized parts.
Team Eureka Robotics is coached by Rob Reynolds, Ron Vanleishout, and Renee Melton. LCHS competes under a competition called FTC (First Tech Challenge), which is part of the organization called FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Eureka currently have three teams:
10662 Lazer Sharks In Space
7002 Couch Potatoes
8271 E-Hackers
The participants of Eureka Robotics are from a range of grades, but mainly Freshman and Seniors. Most students usually choose which team they want to be on, and sometimes they're randomly scrambled and placed to make it a bit interesting, but always making sure the people they're with each have different skills.
Competitions usually start in September and end around February. If a team qualifies for worlds, it's around an additional 2-3 months extra. Practices are on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Most of the members for each team are in the Robotics class so they have extra time to work on the competitions bots and documentation.
Throughout their time in class and competition students learn to computer program their bots to complete certain tasks. School robotics translates to real world computer programming skills. Every little function of a bot is programmed using Android Studio, a form of Java. Java programming is the building block for lots of mainstream applications, including desktop, mobile, and web. It is also widely used in developing enterprise-level applications, such as financial and trading systems, e-commerce platforms, and healthcare systems. So, to be learning this in school for free while also competing is a valuable experience.
Making the world competition is a great achievement. To make it to worlds, it takes a lot of dedication, practice, and cooperation with your team. When building the bot, it requires critical thinking and a bright, creative mind. Usually, Montana has two qualifiers every year, each one giving teams a chance to reserve a spot to state. In previous years, teams would be able to take another state's spot in state competition, but this year it has unfortunately been restricted. Once a team wins at state, the world championship is next in Houston, Texas. 200+ went to World's this year; last year it was 160.
The most successful team that we have had in our school's history was in 2021 when the E-Hackers made it to the World Championships in Houston. These students created a successful image for the robotics team and have spurred an interest from more students than before. All of the participants from this accomplished team have continued their academic careers and are now enrolled in college.
Head Coach Rob Reyonlds has one thing to say about robotics and that is, “ We’re not using kids to make robots, we’re using robots to make kids.”
Rennee Melton has been helping coach the robotics team for a few years and this is what she had to say about the sport: “Robotics is a sport for the mind! It's a great way for students interested in STEM to work together as a team and compete against other schools in a challenging and fun way.”
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