The robotics team worked hard at the Week Zero Invitational this past week on Valentine’s Day. This event, held at EHS, simulated a robotics tournament so they could practice.

The Week Zero Invitational was meant to provide teams with an opportunity to analyze and enhance their robots and educate new team members about the events that occur at competitions. During the competition, the team fashioned two robots. They “bagged” one of the robots and worked on the other one with numerous tests and experiments. The ultimate goal was to use ingenuity to calculate and solve problems that arose with the robot(s).

Overall, the practice tournament ran smoothly. Senior team member Melanie Quick describes the unique Week Zero experience and the members’ roles, “The team tries to be student-led. We as students have to run all the stuff that adults usually do. There’s a lot of budgeting, organizing, and making sure everybody knows what’s going on. With Week Zero, you have to run a field management system to connect with the robots. Sometimes that doesn’t succeed and you have to work through the code.”

Their first official meet is coming up on Thursday, February 26th. The whole team is eager to begin competing and, akin to much of Eagan’s other activities, has their own distinctive atmosphere, style, and talents.

Quick shares, “We’ve been working really hard and I think we should do well.”

This year, robotics teams are undertaking the Recycle Rush, a challenge that entails assembling totes and placing pool noodles into recycling containers. The goal is to stack them as high as you can.

“Our team is great.” Quick elaborates. “We’re known for being a really helpful team. Part of being in robotics is your willingness to help other teams. Running the Week Zero competition was a big undertaking- we do a lot of things like that to help other teams.”

If you’re interested, the robotics team is always open to new members, even now in the season. It involves coding, technological skills, and a lot of fun.