The Flying Toasters robotics team looks to improve upon its 2022 World performance as members prepare for their upcoming season, slated to kickoff at Standish-Sterling High School March 16-18. Their first competition will take place on the third weekend in March.

Robotics is a competitive club in which members create, design, and use engineering skills to create a working robot to complete mission tasks and activities. Successful and efficient robotic designs and controls, along with strong team participation, have the potential to win competitions.

Many students participating in robotics have an optimistic outlook for the season ahead; and have chosen their role on the team. Some areas include: Robot Driver, Pit Crew, Software Coding, Engineering or Scout Team. The star of the season requires countless hours of hard work during which each member practices their role by crafting, ideating, and developing skills in the chosen areas of contribution.

Many kids in robotics are excited and eager for the team to try to go to the World’s competition; but first, it all starts with them working hard at their practices.

Cullen Wessel, a member of the Mechanical Engineering Group, emphasized that during practice, “We meet at Weber’s room. I usually work on mechanical design, which is designing and engineering the parts for the robot,” Wessel said, “The team goal is to win Einstein’s at the World competition.”

Wessel has been doing robotics since middle school and said that during practices, the team determines what needs to be improved on the robot, and that determines what the Mechanical Engineering Team looks to accomplish during that session.

Grayson Howard, a member of the team Computer-Aided Design (C.A.D.) group, is a first-year member of the team: he chose this role because he finds the job interesting and fun.

“C.A.D. is designing and printing 3D parts. The parts are used in the robot,” Howard said. “I prepare for the meetings by taking my computer and sometimes pieces of paper with information on it. During practice, I usually design parts for the robot on a computer.”

Lydia Wray is another student in South Lyon who is on the robotics team. She is one of the members in robotics who is very versatile when it comes to robotics since she knows so much.

Members with experience on the team may choose to take an interdisciplinary role where they can help several groups in various capacities. Such is the case with Wray who said, “[I choose] Many different things from mechanical design to organizing outreach throughout the community.”

The robotics team has put in a lot of time and effort in hopes of achieving their goal of reaching Worlds; as they have done in prior years.

With a new season right around the corner, many should feel excited to see the Flying Toasters once again turning up the heat for another intense season.