Skagway hosted its first Southeast robotics regional competition for high schoolers. They earned the most coveted prize, the Inspire Award.
Eleven FIRST Tech Challenge teams converged on Skagway School last weekend. Their robots launched paper airplanes, collected and transferred plastic pieces known as pixels, and hung from a bar.
Ryder Calver is a freshman on the Skagway team. He also plays basketball, which means he devotes multiple hours each day to extracurriculars.
Calver said he was impressed last year when the older robotics club, known as the Prickles, mentored his middle school team.
Calver: “…I really want to work with this team. I think they’re all great people. I want to be able to help them out. And I think robotics is just — it’s a really interesting thing, STEM, and can get you into lots of good careers.”
Calver is considering a career in engineering or perhaps as an auto mechanic.
The out-of-town teams camped at the school, making Sunday’s cancellation of the ferry due to weather something of a catastrophe for the approximately 70 team members and their accompanying adults.
Mindy Miller, who coaches the team with her husband, Andy, is used to being flexible.
Miller: “As soon as I heard the ferry was canceled — I know everyone was scrambling how to get home, and it was 12:30. And I said, no, I’m more scrambling to feed 70 kids that are starving. I was thinking lunch first, before how do we get them home.”
Everyone was fed as a Skagway community member donated hundreds of dollars for frozen pizza and the Millers farmed the entrees out to households for cooking and delivery. Another Skagwegian donated breakfast items.
Skagway School charted an Allen Marine vessel on Monday to pick up their stranded athletes in Juneau, giving the robotics teams in Skagway a lift home.
The Prickles do not fall under the umbrella of Skagway School and compete as an independent club, meaning they must raise their own funds. They often participate in burger feeds at the Elks and sell raffle tickets.
The team moves onto the state competition in Palmer this February. Miller is proud of her team’s current accomplishment, which she described as the top regional award. She said they earned it by marketing, community outreach and community service.
Miller: “They want to see a well-rounded team, not just one that’s strong in robot. They want to see one that’s strong in every area. And that’s what the Inspire Award is — which is the one that everybody aims for when they come to competition. And that was the one Skagway took.”
For KHNS, I’m Melinda Munson
