I spend much time from Jan-Mar working with my students to design and build a robot for the FIRST Robotics Competition. It’s hard, it’s exhausting, and every year I question why I come back.

I had never heard the Dean Kamen quote, “I don’t use kids to build robots. I use robots to build kids.” I find it hilarious but accurate. Students get so much more than a little technical knowledge from the experience. They learn how to follow the design process, work together as a team, and communicate with members from other teams. They also learn to deal with disappointment and long, sometimes-boring days when things don’t quite go how they want.

This year, we went 6-6 and ended up ranked 25, which is one of our better showings. We didn’t make it to the elimination rounds but had fun doing it. I’m very proud of our team and how well they did. We were a rookie team in all but number, and so many people told me how proud of they were of us for doing as well as we did throughout the weekend.