Central Coast students launch robotics season at Chartwell School

Twelve teams from the Central Coast gathered at Chartwell School in Seaside to kick off the robotics season, joining thousands of teams worldwide in the FIRST Robotics Competition, a STEM program for high school students. Teams received some of the critical parts needed to start building robots designed to complete athletic-style challenges, such as launching a ball into a target.”It’s really about building life skills. From a technical perspective, students are going to be learning all the engineering aspects, right? Mechanical, electrical software. But they’re also learning leadership, delegation, time management, priority management, how to work well with others, how to work with other teams,” said Matthew Lussier, a STEM ambassador. “It’s really an amazing tool to help build students.”There are many different roles students can take on. Brooklyn Botelho, the marketing lead for Hollister High School’s robotics team, which has about 50 members, shared her perspective.”It’s very interesting seeing us start from zero and building all the way up to a working, functioning robot,” Botelho said.She doesn’t physically build the robot, but her role is just as important as she gets to market the team effectively.”My goal is to get us more out there to make new friends, to get more people, to know of our team, interact with them so we can have those connections to work with other teams and companies like that,” Botelho said.Teams now have about eight weeks to prepare before district competitions begin, all for a shot at the state championship and, potentially, the world championship in Texas in mid-April.”The whole spirit of this is to work together,” said Topher Mueller, organizer of the Central Coast FIRST Robotics Kickoff Event.