The new competition season for the FIRST Robotics Competition, or FRC, team kicks off on January 7.

Robotics club has been in session since October; however, the FRC competition season has yet to begin.  The FRC game, “STEAMworks,” will debut on Saturday at 9am, when teams across the country will watch to find out what this year’s game consists of. From there, the team will begin designing their robot.

“We know the game is going to have a steampunk theme,” John Keyzer, faculty sponsor and technology teacher, said. “We don’t get the details until January 7, and then we have six weeks and two days to build, test, code, and package up our robot for shipping.”

The robot must be finished by February 21, as per FRC rules. The team will compete in two regionals in March, located in Peoria on March 17 and then in Milwaukee on March 24.

“It’s hard to gauge if we are going to win a competition. Winning isn’t the objective; it’s about designing a good robot,” Alexis Renderos, junior Software team member, said. “When  joined as a freshman, I had different views, but now as a junior, I’ve grown in my expectations.”

Every year, FRC competitors get a book of rules approximately 150 pages long that states the requirements for the robot. Each robot is different and unique because for each competition, there is a new task the robot must complete.

There are about 35 students on the FRC team that are divided into smaller teams, Software team is in charge of designing the code to make the robot complete tasks, and Mechanical team physically builds the robot. Spirit Squad is in charge of team awards and social activities. Strategy team comes up with plans for how to win the competition, while Business team handles finances and community outreach.

“Each team plays an important part in building the robot,” Keyzer said. “But only two teams physically build the robot, and that would be Software and Mechanical.”
The team will meet every day after school and from 8am to 5pm on Saturdays for the duration of the build season.