With STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) interests continuing to thrive in our community, Pleasant Valley progresses in promoting these fields through its popular robotics programs. There will be two teams from the high school that will be competing in this year’s FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). FTC is one of the four programs offered by FIRST. Students are challenged to build, design, program, and control a robot to score the highest amount of points under a short time limit. Check out http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc to gain a better understanding of the opportunities students are exposed to in these programs.

On Sept. 10, team members attended the Kickoff event in which the challenge for this year was released. Participants were able to get a glimpse of what they will be working with for this season.

Pleasant Valley will be represented by teams “Deviation from the Norm” and “Everything That’s Radical.” Below is a list of the members on each team.

Team 6093: Deviation from the Norm

Blake Friemel

Jordyn Haessler

Harrison Qu 

Justin Sehlin

Trinity Shi

Aditya Subramaniam

Vishwajit Subramanian

Cameron Trentz

Rishab Verma

Team 7196: Everything That’s Radical

McClain Acri

Ryan Brohm

Austin Collins

Alex Curlee

Austin Hedgren

Scott Henrichs

Shashank Inampudi

Roshni Penmatcha (8th period)

Damandeep Riat

Nate Roethler

“Looking at the students we have returning we definitely have a lot of experience and high expectations set for this year. My goals for this year are to get both teams to the super regional tournament, and we will see what happens from there,” states Grant Housman, engineering teacher and coach for both FTC teams.

Robotics at the high school began as an after-school club. Now, it has become a part of the school day. Last year, Pleasant Valley introduced a new course for students interesting in competing in FTC: Introduction to Robotics Engineering. The success of last year’s teams shows the benefits of transforming the FTC club into a class during the school day. The teams brought competition to higher levels. Both Pleasant Valley teams from last year qualified and competed at the state level, and one team advanced to the Super Regionals to compete with the top 7% of the 4300 teams worldwide.

Aditya Subramaniam, senior, is the team leader and programmer for Deviation from the Norm. This will be his seventh year of competing in FIRST robotics programs. “My favorite part of the robotics program is definitely the design process and being able to work in teams while cooperating to find solutions to different problems.” Subramaniam also adds that having FTC built into his school day allows him to participate in fall and winter sports while still being committed to robotics. “It prepares students for their futures, not only in engineering, but in any workforce that requires teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving.”

In addition to building FTC into students’ schedules, the district also generously provided a new robotics facility to keep up with the growing STEM interests. Last May, students moved into the new amenity where the engineering classes are now held. With these resources and unlimited passion from the students, Pleasant Valley’s growing robotics program exposes students to fields they could make careers out of. The limits of innovation are endless.