Robotics recently moved to a different space, creating a better atmosphere and team culture.
The switch to the new space in Valley began during Christmas break. The opportunity happened because of student advocacy, according to robotics coach and math teacher Patty White.
“The students advocated to administration and had an open dialogue explaining the need for the team and for safety [to bring about this new space],” White said.
This new space has been extremely beneficial to robotics.
“This space has been a huge improvement for robotics, because the whole team has been able to be in one spot. Previously, when the team had a meeting, we were divided into three or four different spots,” White said.
This singular space has improved the culture of the team by bringing the whole team together.
“[We’ve] been able to build the culture of a team, because before, when we're all in different places, it felt like we had six small teams, not one huge team,” White said.
Communication between team members has also improved.
“We have new and separate rooms for each sub team in our larger team. So we all have our own respective places with our own respective tools there, and it's much easier to communicate with each other by just going to the next room,” junior robotics member Stefania Kattar said.
This space has also made robotics more productive and able to build the robot quicker.
“Because they have access to each other, we were split up into subgroups that are part of the robot you work on, the iteration process has been faster, and so we'll be able to integrate the different pieces of the robot better and more smoothly,” White said.
White is excited about how the new space can help robotics become more successful and more prepared for competitions.
“When robotics goes to a competition, they have to figure out how to drive the robot, how to operate the robot. The first 15 seconds in the game, the robot has to do its own thing, and before we couldn't practice. And so we would go to a competition and we're supposed to be competing, but that was really our practice. Now, we have a space where we can lay out what it would look like to compete, and when we go to a competition, we can be ready to compete. So, [this space] gives us this competitive edge that we never had before,” White said.
Kattar agreed that the new space can improve robotics ability to compete.
“Driving is better. Driving is such a big component. People don't understand how big of a component this is, but without driving or practice, we can't do well in our competitions. So with this big space, we're allowed to explore new territories and we're able to build more parts, bigger parts to test out,” Kattar said.
There are still many improvements that White wants to add to the space, but it's already had a huge positive impact on robotics.
