Students need help getting to national competition
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RONAN – Robotic arms moved around gears, macro photography laid on the table, and short film clips played on a small screen as Ronan School District students displayed their skills.
The event was a two-night fundraiser, starting on Monday, to help send five students to a national competition in June after they won at the state level.
The students brought back hardware from the Billings state championship in April for being the Robotics Champions, with a third place in photography, and second and third place in the video category.
Now they are doing everything they can to raise money to purchase plane tickets to get to the Nashville competition, including auctioning off pies, serving dinner and selling raffle tickets.
Folks can still buy raffle tickets for an Apple iPod by calling the school at 406-676-3390 ext. 7553 or project mentor and teacher Jesse Gray at 406-531-9044.
The students are also going to scrub cars and hold a silent auction on June 11 in the parking lot in front of Subway starting around 10 a.m.
“The kids are raising money for a week-long conference that will cost $13,000,” Gray said. “They need to raise about $7,500 more.”
The kids are working hard to raise that money to represent the state.
“We are the first high school in Montana to take a team to nationals,” Gray said of the technology competition.
The students are competing with their own skill.
“I teach them the basics and it’s up to them to design it and build it,” he said.
This year’s robot is controlled by a remote control as it rolls across the floor, picks up a ball and shoots it into a basket. The students plan to pack it up in a crate and take it to the Nashville competition to compete with students across the country.
“We had to adjust the gear ratios to get it to shoot the ball at the angle we wanted,” Senior Ryan Talsma said, adding that he became obsessed with the project. “I thought about it all the time.”
Talsma enjoys figuring out how to get the gears to work together with fellow project designer Senior Andrew Koehler, and the project is making an impact on their futures.
“Both of us are going into mechanical engineering,” Talsma said. Talsma thinks it would be fun to design a robot for NASA to drive around on Mars.
The students started learning robotics skills in middle school in a Lego robotics class, although Koehler said he started learning about tinkering with things much earlier.
“I was always taking things apart,” he said.
Senior Colton Shourds served up spaghetti during the event to help raise money for the national competition. His focus is on video.
“I’m thinking about video production for college,” he said. “There is just something about video that I like. You can be as creative as you want with it.”
Freshman Cori Normandeau is going to the state competition to compete in photography.
“I’ve always loved capturing the moment,” she said.
Freshman Shelby Lampi also spends time working on video production. Finishing a project gives her a sense of accomplishment.
“I love the feeling of being done,” she said.
Students can pick their favorite subjects but they help each other when needed.
“This is a team effort,” she said.
