NOTE FROM TEAM CAPTAIN

Are you a student interested in this club? Learn about it from a student's perspective.

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First of all, thank you and welcome for visiting our website. I'm Amit Panchal, the team captain of Fairfax Roarbotics of Fairfax High School.

I think I can guess what you are thinking: "Do I need experience, knowledge, or any skills to join this club?". All members, including me, thought about this before joining. People ask me this every time when I invite them to join. The answer is simple: Experience is NOT required to join our club. What we do require is integrity, interest, and respect for others.

This club was established about three years ago, back when students used to learn in school buildings instead of virtual classrooms. It started as seven students who happened to see a flyer about a starting a robotics club while walking in the hallways. Half of us who signed up didn't know anything about robotics. But with the assistance of our great mentor (and friend) and supportive teachers, our club had unlimited opportunities.

[Check Meet the Team]

Note from Team Captain: List

We cooperated, trusted each other, learned from another, taught another, argued, forgave, made mistakes together, and succeeded together. Soon our club grew with more members as we progressed. We did outreach events to teach coding to kids. We sold donuts at school events so we could buy new parts for our robot. We left school early to pitch a presentation at a software company for sponsorship.

Do you know the feeling when you do something for hours only to find out it doesn't work? How you just face the failure with denial and regret? That's the kind of experience you get used to in this club.

We spent hours designing plans for our robot. Spent three times longer building our robot, only to see it crash or fail. Sometimes it was too inefficient. Too slow compared with other robots. Too weak to lift up a simple, plastic block. Too many times did the program refuse to work. But after every failure was one step towards success.

Assemble, activate, observe, disassemble... repeat.

We competed against teams with faster, stronger, self-automated and 3D printed robots while our robot was held together with just screws and duct tape, programmed by members who taught themselves how to code a robot in a couple of months. But our robot wasn't some failure, it was dedication. (Also we did win couple of times, not all robots were better than us!)

Note from Team Captain: What We Do

What I appreciate about First Tech Challenge is that it's not just about winning. The competition takes everything you did as a team into consideration. How much time and work each member put in, the creativity, supporting STEM in your community, the failures, the successes, how you improved. All these things are recorded in our engineering notebook that we submit for the judges to see.

I like to believe that's how we qualified and competed in the Virginia State Championship. By defining what teamwork is. Or maybe it was because we built one tuff robot. Probably both.

That's my story as a member of MEATS robotics club. So please don't get discouraged by your lack of experience. All you need to join this club is integrity, interest, and respect in your character. Everyone eventually finds a roll to fill in our club, related to STEM or not.

Of course, we welcome anyone with past experiences or skills in robotics. We will gladly accept members who are willing to teach their skills to members who are interested in learning. That's the whole purpose of the club! To learn together and experience together. You know coding? Built electronics before? We need you! Help us out expanding the learning experience in STEM.

As we all know, due to the pandemic situation we are facing currently, we will not be competing this year. It's a great disappointment how we are unable to work together as a team and share this experience to others. But don't forget about us! Our club is still alive and looking for other opportunities! Maybe when things finally get better we will be open to more activities and events. So if you are interested, sign up for our interest meeting and mark your calendar. Submit your email so we can contact you about our updates.

fairfaxrebelrobotics@gmail.com to email us questions directly. Stay safe!

Ricky Chong, Captain of MEATS