Looking back over the three year history of the robotics team, I am struck by the impact this simple idea has had on students. It reflects a basic principle in teaching: get them started, then let them go. The students will do the rest. We have taken a motley group of smart but undisciplined students and turned them into an effective engineering team that can execute – on-time and on-budget. We have students who would not be out of place in a professional engineering firm: students who can analyze a problem invent a solution and then implement it. And they have achieved this level of competence voluntarily, all on an extracurricular basis.

The robotics team got its start in 2003 as the AMHS Science Club. One of the field trips we took that year was to watch a local robotics competition - that was all the encouragement they needed. The founding members decided to venture into robotics. We looked at the various alternatives and launched a team. The competition we chose was FIRST Robotics. This is a nationwide competition that seeks to interest high school students in science and technology. The competition was established by Dean Kamen, a prolific inventor, engineer, and father of the Segway Personal Transporter. Dean created FIRST to provide a means to celebrate the source of much of the quality of life that we enjoy today: the creative and entrepeneurial spirit of the thousands of engineers and technologists who established the environment for today's culture in the US. He saw people celebrating the fruits of all that hard work: the panoply of arts and sports that we enjoy in today's media, but few avenues for encouraging young people to puruse careers in science that maintain those luxuries of life.

In our first year, the total experience on our team amounted to one student who had participated in the Tech Museum's Tech Challenge the previous year. We somehow recruited a group of 5 or 6 freshmen, begged our way into the Physics Lab, and tried to prepare ourselves for the competition. Meeting in the Physics Lab turned out to have important consequences, because we caught the attention of a few AP Physics students to round out the team.

The competition changes every year, with a new set of rules coming out in January. That first year, we had little understanding of the challenges ahead. How and where would we cut metal? How do we get parts welded? Would we run out of money? Would we run out of time? As with many start-ups, ignorance was an asset - we didn't let the difficulty of any particular task stop us from trying. The team established an important convention that year: they made the team a student-run operation.

Students in the AMHS Robotics Team make the decisions, not the teachers or parents, and that year made the very wise decision to limit their robot to doing one thing very well. It would grab a bar and lift its 130 pound bulk off the ground to score points at the end of a match. The "Mark I" robot (creative writing is not these kids' strong suit) was an unqualified success, making it to the semifinals of the local competition, and giving us confidence going into our second year.

In our second year, however, we had more students, much more experience, and too much confidence. This time the robot had to lift and manipulate large, heavy objects. The team created a very ambitious design and never quite managed to make it achieve its potential. The last-minute adjustments that they pulled off the year before didn't come together until the later stages of the competition. Still, the team made it to the semi-finals, and learned some important lessons. Much of the mechanical design had been done in CAD (Computer-Aided Design) and could easily be leveraged for the next coming year. They also learned a lot about planning and meeting deadlines, and pulling together as a team with parents and mentors to make a complex system work properly.

In this, our third year, the team has grown much larger and has several students with three years of experience under their belts. All of the design is done using CAD tools, and the team has well-established groups with strong leaders responsible for different subsystems on the robot. Planning and scheduling is still a challenge, but the team completed and tested their robot before it shipped this year - a first in our history. Students work with an eye to creating a legacy for next year: software modules are built to be re-used and enhanced in later years, and mechanical designs are changed incrementally rather than starting from scratch.

This year's robot is very capable: it can lift balls off the ground and shoot them at a target 30 feet away. We have a broad spectrum of students from freshmen to seniors involved, and we have a number of three year veterans who will be returning next year. Parents and mentors are heavily involved, and the team is well integrated into the Archbishop Mitty community.

Back in our first year of competition, I worried about the students feeling successful. I need not be worried - these kids are talented and responsible, and they find a way to succeed. I know of no better opportunity in high school for kids to make decisions, work hard, and see tangible, positive consequences. going through the building process and experiencing the excitement of a competition can change a student's life, and we have many students who are different because of their time in robotics.

Principal Tim Brosnan recently remarked on the impact of the Robotics Program at Archbishop Mitty, "To observe the students on the Robotics Team at work is to be mesmerized by their talent, their motivation, and their teamwork. When they speak about the rather complex process of designing and building a robot to accomplish particular tasks, their eyes light up and you can see the pride and joy on their faces. Clearly, doing science and engineering is not only hard; it's fun!"
---Mr. Fairley

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Often, I am asked to explain what it means to build a robot. There are three answers.

To prospective team members, I explain the thrill and exhilaration associated with competitions. The feeling of pride that comes with seeing your robot on the field—your weeks of agonizing brainstorming sessions; countless hours of time at a computer; and days on end of time in the lab with tools in hand—is nearly indescribable. Nearly. There is simultaneous panic, anticipation, surrealness, and ecstasy.

To professional engineers, I describe our process of generating a product. Starting with requirements, we move into a concept phase, followed by a period of design and drafting. Upon finalizing our numbers, we build and fabricate. Then, if we are lucky enough to finish on schedule, we test and debug.

Robotics students can competently read their way through a power curve of a D.C. motor; first-handedly know why P.I.D. control far surpasses dead reckoning; and even understand what the warning "DO NOT EXCEED 120 PSI" truly means. But, this still does not answer the question of "what is robotics?" For this, we must turn towards my third response.

The true meaning of robotics is neither what we build nor how we build it. Rather, it's value can only be expressed by explaining with whom we work and why. So, who are we, exactly? We are students, with a hunger and a capacity for knowledge. We are colleagues, with ideas to debate and decisions to be made. We are friends, with stories to share and memories made. But most importantly, we are the next generation. In the very near future, the world, and all of its challenges, will be in our hands. We will no longer have the luxury of thinking "someone else is taking care of it." That someone will be us. We will be responsible for fixing emissions problems and levee breaks. We will be responsible for making the world safer, smarter, cleaner, and better. Fortunately, robotics has made us tried and true problem solvers. We're armed with the management skills to distribute a challenge in to more manageable segments. We're armed with the teamwork experience to supplement and support each others' skills so that we may work cooperatively to a common end. We're armed with the dedication and responsibility to see a job through to the end—no matter how tough the journey is. Most importantly, we have acquired the temperance to always seek improvement-to not be happy with "it's good enough."

So, why do we do it? Nothing about this project is easy. My three years on the team have brought me the most challenging, unnerving, brain-wracking, wit testing, sleep depriving, stress inducing times of my life. But that's just the key: life. When I said "project," that encompassed more than the 130 pound, 5 foot tall machine. Robotics is a life project. It's an exercise, a microcosm, of not only academics, but also of mindset. It's a place to pick up a mentality of what the FIRST community calls "gracious professionalism." Each day, I am challenged to work hard, work smart, work right, and above all work cooperatively. Granted, some tasks must be surmounted alone; but that does not exempt them from being an opportunity to positively contribute to the world.

Finally, I've arrived at "why." Nobody forced me in to this. Nobody told me to commit my days, nights, weekends, and vacations in to learning all of this. In fact, on the Mitty team, we ask simply that "you give what you can. When you have to leave, we understand." Yet somehow, in this all volunteer group, we've grown to a substantial membership. In this all-volunteer group, we get Saturday nights contributed. So here's the answer: we, or at least I, do it because it feels right. Robotics has been my niche, my home. In this setting, I feel productive and useful. I am content, even happy, to claim my place in the robotics community. I like seeing, feeling, and experiencing the tangible fruits of my labor. I see promise and inspiration in engineering. It's a place for me to apply my classroom skills. Beyond that, I've gathered more practical knowledge than any lecture or presentation could have given me.

Robotics is truly a microcosm of the world-with problems needing to be solved, deadlines to be met, challenges to overcome, colleagues to influence, and even mentors to learn from. I have dabbled into the world of engineering, of problem solving. It is our future to guide young minds into a better mindset - to transcend the excuse of "it's good enough." My future is brighter and clearer than ever. I aim for the stars not because I've been told to, but because I genuinely want to. I've seen the heights of what the world can offer - brilliance, cooperation, ingenuity, creativity - and there's no looking back.
---Paolo