RISE OF
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“It’s become bigger. It’s a team sport, and I want to treat it that way,” Franck
said. Troy Middle School (TMS) teacher Brandon Franck is referring to the
world of robotics. In the middle school’s inaugural year of having robotics,
Franck and his two teams of eight students brought home the hardware
including a 1st runner up for the seventh grade team and a 2nd runner up
for the eighth grade team. Many times the TMS teams were beating high
school competitors.
In the 2013-14 school year, the TMS Robotics teams competed against
some middle schools and several high school robotics teams in Potosi,
Belton, Oakville and the state competition in Rolla. According to Franck,
there aren’t too many middle school robotics teams and TMS is definitely
“leading the way.” In fact, robotics teams in the United States didn’t have
hosted competitions until around 2006.
“Robotics appeals to a lot of our gifted kids. It is their opportunity to be
s
stretched. With robotics there is no one answer,” he said. The Robotics Coach
said students have to plan, design, construct and program their “bots.” Franck
said many times the result wasn’t what the students were expecting and
students have to return to the drawing board. The seventh grade team tweaked
the design of their VEX robot four to five times before entering it in competitions.
During one of the team’s revisions, Alex Gambill enlisted the help of his grandpa who
spent his career as an engineer. He taught Gambill and his teammates the torque
equation, which increased the strength of the robot’s arm.
“The first adjustment had too much torque, so we had to dial it back a bit,” he said.
Currently, there are eight members to a robotics team. TMS has a seventh and an
eighth grade team. The selection process included an application, which consisted of a
short essay on why a student wanted to become a member of the robotics team, grades, MAP
test scores and survey. Fifty students applied.
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