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More than a dozen ideas were formed into one as Kearney High School students built a robot for competition.

“There was a lot of yelling involved — that was basically my part, yelling,” student Megan Totusek said. “Communication was key. We just took bits and pieces from everybody.”

The students in the Rover Robotics after-school club at Kearney High School spent the fall semester fundraising and recruiting mentors. In January they received thespecifications and perimeters for their robot along with the rules for the game in late February.

They had six weeks to design and build a robot for the annual FIRST Robotics competition at Hale Arena in Kansas City. FIRST is an acronym meaning For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

The students had to learn by trial and error.

“We decided something completely different than what we’ve got,” Alex Baum, a senior, said.

Totusek, a senior, is in the second-year club for the first time.

“It just sounded like a fun thing to do,” Totusek said.

She said she’s not good at math and science, but it’s still fun.

“This has definitely helped me expand in those in those areas,” Totusek said.

She said she would like to go into the technical side of broadcasting for a career.

Other students at the competition Thursday to Saturday, Feb. 26 to 28, were also putting their skills to the test. Some of them hope to go into careers that the robotics club can teach them about.

“I like computers,” Nick Spear said.

Spear, a senior, said he was having fun as long as he was programming the robot. Spear said he would like to go into computer science and math. On Thursday, he was modifying the robot’s autonomous mode. In the practice trials Thursday, the robot didn’t do all the automated tasks the way the group had planned.

That’s the main focus of the club, said KHS science teacher Amy Sparks.

“It’s not winning as much as it is competition,” Sparks said. “We’re teaching the kids how to problem solve.”

There was problem solving on the day of the trials, like the programming. There was also some last-minute problem solving before last weekend. Part of the game at the FIRST Robotics competition was chucking balls into trailers towed by other robots. The Kearney High School students came up with a throwing arm for the robot, but the Friday before Presidents Day, they realized the gears wouldn’t support the arm.

“They have to learn compromise,” Sparks said. “Sometimes their idea doesn’t work.”

After talking to some friends in Smithville for ideas, the Kearney students modified the throwing arm to a conveyor belt.

“It makes them think outside the box,” Sparks said.

They also got the idea from Smithville students to use aluminum instead of angle wire to make their overweight robot lighter.

“They really have to be good at solving problems,” Sparks said.

Designing the robot and fixing its problems are right up Baum’s alley.

“I want to get my engineering degree; I figured this would be a good way to go about it,” Baum said about why he joined the club.

Others enjoy putting it all together.

“I just like building stuff,” Aaron Henrichs, a junior, said.

Sparks said the club was always seeking more mentors, especially those in engineering, marketing, electrical or computer programming fields; but anyone who uses problem solving in their profession can be helpful.

This year, the high school got help from Honeywell for mentorship.

Kearney High School finished 35th of 61 teams.

“We had some bad luck with our robot not being stable enough,” Baum said.

He said that and wiring issues caused some setbacks, and the team spent much of the competition making repairs and adjustments.

“I think we can do a lot better if we had another shot at it,” Baum said.

The team may get that shot. The robotics club is trying to raise money to go to St. Louis in three weeks for a similar competition.

Kearney Editor

Kevin M. Smith can be reached at 628-6010 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .