The New York Knicks’ Tyson Chandler may be shooting 71% from the floor this year, but has the reader ever seen a robot shoot a basketball? On March 2, our Jesuit Robotics team, the All Sparks, will be heading to the Dallas Convention Center to compete in the annual FIRST robotics competition.
Led by club president Patrick Barone ’12 and two moderators, history teacher Mark Wester and math teacher Michael Couvillion, Team 2848 hopes to make a serious run at the FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition. But what exactly is the competition? In brief, teams must construct a machine that can secure a basketball and shoot it into a hoop (think robot basketball). For a full run down of rules and stipulations, see FIRST’s promo clip here.
Jesuit has been competing in robotics for four years. With the addition of Mr. Couvillon, who Wester says has “breathed life into [the] program,” Jesuit’s engineers have placed considerably high in competition for a newer team. Last year, they even went to the renowned national robotics competition in St. Louis. “[The St. Louis competition] is where the big boys go,” says 
Wester.
The success of these young men can be attributed to, among other things, an impressive dedication. “I rarely see a group of students at an extracurricular activity not messing around,” said Wester, a veteran of Jesuit extracurricular activities. “The robotics club comes in, they get right to work, they are having fun, they’re being productive, they’re able to do all this stuff, but you can tell there is just a productive energy that takes place. It’s an amazing thing to see.”
Club members agree that dedication runs deep in Team 2848. “I find the engineering really exciting and quite frankly addicting,” said four-year participant Patrick Barone ’12. “I have to force myself to stop thinking about robotics and start thinking about school.”
The robotics team started in what is now the math lab, but recently they have moved on to better accommodations. The workshop for the Jesuit robotics team is located at the Valley View Mall in what used to be a Footlocker. At the workshop, the boys have several stations to work on the robot including a set of backboards and hoops for the robot to shoot on.
Parts for the robots are envisioned and designed by Jesuit students on professional design programs and then sent to a company that can assemble them. In just a few weeks they can put together their robot and test it out.
The machine may be hard to imagine, but it closely resembles other sport machines. “[The]
design,” says Quinn Wolff ’12, “is basically a pitching machine that can rotate on two axes (pitch up and down and rotate side to side).”
Fans can come out and support Jesuit’s engineers at the FIRST competition, March 2 at the Dallas Convention Center.
