Gallery • 10 Photos

Cheyann Neades

North, Johnston and Roosevelt students operate their team robots in hopes to score points in a two minute and thirty second match.

A room full of wrenches, toolboxes, metal parts lay on tables while the aroma of the room fills with the smell of freshly baked pizzas. Family members and friends gather to sit in the seats in front of a small arena filled with red and blue bins with other scoring guides. This is the description of a high school robotics tournament.

The North High Robotics team, the Polar Technics, have placed first and fourth on their first two tournaments of the season, while placing second on their most recent tournament on January 8, hosted in the north high gym.

The tournament consisted of ten teams around the Des Moines Metro area including Johnston, Roosevelt and Ankeny teams.

Tournaments and matches for the Polar Technics and their robot 3609, also known as “Fluffy,” are ran by First Tech Challenge (FTC), which is sponsored by The University of Iowa and the John Deere company. This program gives the season challenge annually for the robotics students so they can develop a winning robot.

Sophomore and also team captain, Trent Rover leads himself and seven other team members in the Polar Technics in hopes of going to state; “when people hear robotics they think of battle bots, which is robots fighting each other; but here it’s so much more than that. FTC is more about community and our goal here is just to get to state like all of the other high school activities,” Rover explained.

Along with the team captain comes coaches. Head Coach Bryan Butcher is assisted with coach Dwight Smith, both being north high art teachers.

Bryan Butcher takes on his seventh year of coaching the robotics team, giving him a lot of experience, his favorite being “making moving sculptures and making them do something” because “it’s pretty cool and is a nice challenge,” Butcher described.

The Polar Technics still have yet to go with a couple more matches to reach the goal of going to state on January 31, 2016. But with the team’s motivation, knowledge, and talent, not one robot can occupy their path.