Indian Creek High School robotics team gears up for competition season

<p>Just a few years ago, their team was being rebuilt.</p><p>Now, members of the Indian Creek High School robotics team have made a robot that will compete at multiple competitions across the state and are funding it with mostly student-led donations.</p><p>Th Indian Creek High School FRC Robotics Team 3180 won an IN-Mac grant that will help them buy tools and parts for their robot. After spending about six weeks building their robot, they will now have the chance to compete at statewide competitions and possibly earn a bid to state and world competitions. Students worked to get the money they needed to compete and to build a robot they can compete with.</p><p>A robotics team has existed at the school for about a decade. About three years ago, students were left without a leader to help them get through their season, coach Dwight Baxter said.</p><p>Baxter had worked with the Center Grove team for years when his own children joined Center Grove’s team. Indian Creek students had a working robot and needed someone to see them through their season, so Baxter volunteered. Other parents and community engineers and those with STEM careers have joined in, and the robotics team is now in the throes of their season.</p><p>“It is really a lot of fun,” Baxter said. “I can see the benefit.”</p><p>Now their robot is built, and they just competed in their first competition of the season over the weekend.</p><p>The team met at the school in early January, where robotics teams from across the world received the video that detailed the theme of the season and what they had to build their robot to do.</p><p>After that, teams brainstorm what they want to do with the help of their adult advisers and have about six weeks to execute what they wanted to do. Team members met most school evenings to spend time working on their robot. More evenings will be spent at the school in the next month or so as they gear up for competition.</p><p>Indian Creek’s 13 team members made a pro and con list for how to make their robot complete the mission — which includes covering holes on a spaceship with a hatch and lifting a ball multiple feet into the air — and then got to work.</p><p>They built it in the time allotted and bagged it up, per FIRST rules. Bags are only allowed to come off of robots during competition season for a certain amount of time each week, Baxter said.</p><p>Now, they are gearing it up for competition.</p><p>The very basics of getting into FIRST robotics costs $5,000 each season. That money buys a basic robot kit for each team and gains them entry into a few competitions, Baxter said.</p><p>Additional parts they need have to be paid for by sponsors, donated or scavenged. More money is also needed to get students to and from each competition and for overnight accommodations. That additional money is funded by students.</p><p>“You have to raise money each step of the way,” Baxter said.</p><p>Students ask local businesses for money, earning thousands in sponsorships that way. They participate in corporation-wide fundraisers. Team members sold brownies and drinks, planned games and did robotics demonstrations at last fall’s Music at the Creek event, which brought them money.</p><p>Team members believe they have found their niche in their school, spending time after school and making friends, sophomore team member Zach Dyer said.</p><p>“After school, I get to think of something with friends,” he said.</p><p>And students are learning things after school that there is no time for during the school day, according to coach Lauren Nielsen.</p><p>“There is no other classroom that would support that,” she said.</p>