Charles City High School ‘Nerd Squad’ competes at robotics event
By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com
The Charles City Robotics Team — also known as the CC Robotics Nerd Squad, Team 8770 — won multiple rookie awards in robotics competition last month at the University of Northern Iowa. Charles City’s team was one of 45 teams competing from Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas.
As a rookie team in its first year of competition, Charles City’s Team 8770 was able to go home with two awards. The first was the Highest Rookie Seed Award, given to the rookie team that ranked the highest out of the other five rookie teams that competed. Team 8770 finished in 30th place and actually ended up as an alternate if one of the final groups of teams was not able to compete in the playoffs.
The second award was the Rookie Inspiration Award, celebrating a rookie team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school, as well as in their community. The team is coached by Jesse White and Janet Hansen.
“Most of the team members were not totally sure how everything was going to pan out as they approached the competition,” White said. “On the way home from the competition, the van was buzzing with students talking about what can be done next year, what other sponsors they can talk to, how they can improve, new technology they could use and if we can go to another competition the following weekend.”
The team consisted of 16 students, including freshmen, sophomores and juniors, with the possibility that all of them could return next year for another season.
“While we didn’t qualify for the World’s Competition in Houston at the end of April, we gained a lot of knowledge for next year,” White said. “Aside from robot building knowledge, we learned about teamwork and how to be professionals. We also had the opportunity to talk to other teams and meet new people along the way.”
Junior Quinzey Praska was the team’s fabrication team leader.
“The experience was great – it was fun,” Praska said. “The competition was really fun.”
Praska explained that in January there is a livestream of the challenge, and each team has to build a robot to meet that challenge. Essentially this year the challenge was to pick up cargo consisting of oversized tennis balls and load them into a hub.
Praska said he was proud to have scored the highest of all the rookie teams.
The team is planning on demonstrating the robot at a Party in the Park event this summer. The team also plans on spending the off-season reaching out to more sponsors and getting more students involved.
“We’d like to get younger people into it, so once they do hit high school they know about it and want to join,” Praska said.
Sophomore Shelby Effle was a team member who reached out to companies and business in the community for sponsorships.
“It was nice to get to know people, and it builds confidence,” she said. “It was a really fun experience.”
Donors to the team included Zoetis, Cambrex, Fareway, Valero, Mike Molstead Motors, Quality Auto, Field Bros., CUSB Bank, The Optometric Center, Lessin Supply Co., L & J Industries, Unique Country Store, Awe’s Sandwich Shop and Aesthetically Awe’s in Mason City and the school district.
Both students are already thinking about next year. Effle said her goal was to see the team improve on its 30th-place finish this year – “maybe get into the top 20.”
Praska has his sights set higher than that.
“Personally, I’d like to make it to nationals next year,” he said.
Community involvement is one of the keys to being competitive in robotics, and White said the team had a group of mentors/engineers from Cambrex, Zoetis and MTE that came in and helped out with the building, programming and design process.
“Most of these students didn’t really know each other at the start of the season but by the time they were done many of them became good friends and pushed each other along the way,” White said. “I got to see tons of growth and confidence built in many of the students as the season went on and it made all of the extra hours totally worth it.”
White said he hopes to get some more students involved next year.
“It’s not just about robotics, there is so much more to it than that,” he said. “Robotics is just a tool for all the life lessons the students are learning.”
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