Did you know Minnetonka has its own robotics team? It’s not Battle Bots, the well-known robotics competition where you build robots with saws and sharp knife-like objects on them, it’s actually much different.
Every year, First Robotics Competition (FRC) releases a new game for each team to compete in, where they complete tasks for points. This year, it’s a shooting game, meaning an entirely new bot must be built at the start of this season. Costing anywhere from $50,000-$70,000, this STEM-centered community of programmers, builders, fundraisers, and strategy members are able to run a bot every year thanks to their many sponsors.
Minnetonka’s own FRC team, Chicken Bot Pie, has a project manager, 4 different subteams, and many mentors, all of whom contribute to the bot each year.
The project manager is a small role, but important. Evan Ginter, ‘26, makes sure everything has a due date. As Ginter notes, “competition is unlike any other…it’s unlike any sports event I’ve ever been to…I have never felt more like I am a part of something.” With the need to keep things on schedule, he works every day to make sure all parts of the building process are done in a timely manner.
Led by senior Jon-Paul Merry, the build team focuses on designing the bot itself. They use Computer-Aided Design to build their own “rough drafts” of the bot in an exciting, hands-on way. Merry says, “I joined my freshman year, mostly because I am interested in engineering… I like getting my hands dirty.”
Emilio Moreno, ‘27, is about as good as programming as a person can get. With Chicken Bot Pie, he says, “I wanted to learn how to do engineering. Robotics has offered an opportunity to learn those collaborative skills that are really difficult to gain.” Between pulling all-nighters and showing up to every practice, he and his programming subteam have put in 1,600 hours in to make sure the bot does everything it’s supposed to. From SCRATCH! That’s right, each year they write every single line of code to change the bot for the necessary.
The “behind the scenes” part of the team is the strategy team. Directed by their captain, Keegan Johansen, ‘27, they do any and all background strategy making for competition days. They look at the performance of the other teams and work to make sure our “alliance” of teams is able to make the best of every game. The second part of their job is cleaning. They organize the build cart, the closet, and are one of the biggest helpers during clean up at the end of every practice.
Last but not least is the foundation and public face of the entire team: Operations. Focusing on fundraising and community outreach, they do critical fundraising needed to run a bot. Their newly elected captain, Connor Smith, ‘28, has been pushing this team to do their best posting on their YouTube and Instagram accounts to spread awareness of their team and the fun at practice. Smith says, “it’s an exciting opportunity where people realize all the work they have put into the team…the people there were really inviting…everyone on the team is connected.”
He also communicates with the sponsors at the start of every year, searching for the funding to have a complete, and operational, bot.
