Local high school robotics team shoots for world championships – KTTC

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Rochester Public Schools’ varsity high school robotics team, Inconceivable 2530, is breaking its own records this year—ranking a historic high third out of 56 teams in its last regional competition.

The robotics team currently ranks ninth out of 187 teams in Minnesota. With its successes, the student-led group said it is a top contender for this upcoming game, which will determine its qualification for the robotics world championships called 2024 FIRST Championships.

“The game changes every year,” Century High School senior and robotics team program manager Tanisha Lahiri said. “When we first got the game it was on January 6th and we had like no idea beforehand what the game was going to be.”

Lahiri explained the team’s current robot was built in six weeks, knowing what it would take to gain the most points during competitions. 2024′s game is called Crescendo; some of its many challenges include using orange rings as tools to score and a stage with chains for robots to climb in the endgame.

Lahiri shared the group’s business team works on fundraising outside of the competition season running typically from January to May.

“We had to fundraise $50,000 all for this season just to build the robot,” Century High School junior and robotics team program manager Nicole Yang said. “We had a generous person from Mayo come and create custom parts for us, so thank you, John. [The robot] wouldn’t be possible without any of our sponsors.”

The program managers stated every student played a role of their own with their self-taught skills. They explained the student-led team not only did fundraising built the robot, but also worked on all aspects of participating in the robotics competition.

Inconceivable 2530′s coaches said the team’s pursuit of learning is made so there is something for everyone. Some of the activities student work on include graphic design, media, robot operation, programming, planning and outreach.

“They’re immersed into problems, where there’s no real answer apparent, and they have to go through and really learn what a lot of us do after we graduate and go out to the business world, which is apply that knowledge, come up with creative solutions and be able to work as a team to create things like in this robot that really excel in the world.”

Lahiri and Yang shared running the robotics team is just like working together in a real company.

“Whatever skills that we learn here are definitely going to be useful in any situation,” Yang said. “We have people skills, business skills, programming and computer aided design skills, and also just designing and engineering skills. So many skills that we can just use to apply in any kind of field that we choose.”

The next robotics competition for Inconceivable 2530 starts April 4 at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. The team members stated they are optimistic they will qualify for both state and world championships.

“It’s a big privilege to be trusted to drive the robot. It’s very expensive and there’s a lot riding on the robot performing well. So it’s pretty stressful, but it’s a whole lot of fun to do it also.”

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