Orange County robotics competition uplifts students in STEM

FIRST North Carolina held its first robotics competition of the 2024 season this weekend at Chapel Hill High School.

Marie Hopper, the president of FIRST NC, said teams who participate in the robotics competition are given a challenge the first week of January and then begin to build their robots. FIRST —which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology — is a global nonprofit organization that aims to help young people discover and explore their passion for STEM.

“They learn what the game's challenges are the first weekend in January,” Hopper said. “From that point on, they have about six to seven weeks to design, prototype, build, test, break, re-test, re-break and get their robot ready for competition.”

Once the competition season starts, teams across the state each compete in two events that allow them to earn state-wide ranking points. The top 40 teams with the most ranking points at the end of the season will compete in the state championship, which is held during the first weekend of April at East Carolina University.

Hopper said the students who participate in the robotics competition appreciate the hands-on nature of the work they do to build the robots they ultimately send into the ring to compete.

“So much of our world is on computers and on phones and virtually oriented, whereas this is very concrete, tactile and hands-on,” Hopper said. “So they love the fact that they're building these industrial-sized robots, that then they get to test and find out, ‘Did their design work?'” 

While many students who participate in a FIRST robotics team work on the actual robot, there are also other roles students can explore including marketing, planning, community outreach, and business and finance. 

Hopper said FIRST encourages students to explore each of these roles and sometimes students end up in a role they hadn’t considered before. Tammy Talbot, a FIRST volunteer, said the environment FIRST provides for students who participate is one of the best things about the program.

“We often have students that come in thinking they want to do the mechanical engineering and then they get hooked on the business and finance,” Hopper said. “Or students that come in thinking they're going to do marketing and they've discovered that they love wiring electronics.” 

Carson Fraley, a member of the Pitt Pirates robotics team from Greenville, said she enjoys being on her team because even if she isn’t working on the robot, she still has a role she enjoys doing.

“I don’t even touch the robot, but I still feel so involved," Fraley said.  "I always have a role and a job whether it's in marketing or planning or outreach. I think it's so much more than just who’s hands-on."

Adrienne King said she joined the Gadget Girls, an all-girls robotic team based in Raleigh, three months ago because she thought the idea of building a robot was interesting, but has grown close with the other girls on her team while they’ve prepared for the competition. 

“It is a really good safe space,” King said. “I'm actually really close with a lot of the team members here, even though I haven't been here as long as they have.”

Elizabeth Hobgood, whose daughter Caroline competes with the Pitt Pirates, said she is thankful her daughter found a community within her robotics club that allowed her to make new friends, practice important skills and explore possible careers for her future.  

“I think that robotics helped my daughter gain a lot of confidence to talk to a lot of different people and be an ambassador for her team,” Hobgood said. “It's helped her with her personal communication and her feeling of self-esteem.”

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