Robotics team leaders hard at work.

By Akil Brathwaite

Co-Managing and In-Depth Editor

Hammond’s Ursa Major robotics club is starting off strong for the 2023-2024 school year. With their meetings starting, new members joining the fray, and experienced previous members returning to Robotics, the future is looking bright for the club and their future activities. While they haven’t gotten their official competition challenge yet, being announced in January according to mechanical build lead Brandon Nguyen, this doesn’t put a pause in their activities leading up to the official announcement and preparations for the challenges.

For now, these activities consist of skill-building and teaching the process of building a robot for new members when competition time comes. They allow these members to get used to the process before competition time comes and it’s time to get serious and put in the work into the robot. The process itself consists of, “[Talking] out what the problem is, potential solutions, and begin designing and making those solutions,” says co-president Dylan Quach, who works to organize meetings and lead the team with his other co-president. Like Brandon, there are multiple build leads who act as leaders in the club, working with each other to brainstorm attachments that would help the robot perform its desired task. Other members typically help out the leaders to build and program the various parts, and then the fun part comes in; testing the robot to see if it’s competition ready.

In the past, Ursa Major has gone to many different competitions yearly. The club competes in Battle of Baltimore every year, having gotten second place in last year’s competition in October with a robot built the previous school year before summer. The prior year had a string of successes too. They’ve gone to States for competitions, and have won runner up awards for competitions as well. Ursa Major has found many successes in prior years, and they’re hoping to follow that up with some more this year.

Robotics is open for anyone who would like to join and help out and attend the competitions. Brandon describes it as, “It’s not just for nerds or engineers, it’s also for those who like hands-on activities and just working together with others.” Members participate in brainstorming, fabricating, and testing, all of which are in a stimulating way in an environment full of their peers who are all willing to help out and put their best foot forward for the good of the club. Even if engineering isn’t necessarily up your alley, Robotics is a fun time where you can do hands-on activities with your friends and peers to build a final product that just might win in competitions.