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Jan 30, 2024

Beal City robotics team gears up for 2023 season

The Beal City robotics team ‘The Gadget Agents’ are gearing up for competition

The Beal City robotics team ‘The Gadget Agents’ are gearing up for competition during their 2023 season.

The robotics team focuses on students designing, building and programing different projects which they can then enter into competitions. ‘The Gadget Agents’ were established in 2016 and has grown their roster to the point where they have students at different grade levels learning and working on projects.

In a couple weeks, the team will be heading to Calvin University in Grand Rapids.

"They are busy fabricating, building, and programming the robot for this season's game," Beal City robotics coach Kathleen Rau said. "Many people don't understand the full scope of the learning that takes place in FIRST (which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics programs. They completely fabricated and built this year's robot on the tools in our shop."

Luke Rau working on the arm for the tower.

Luke Rau with the claw for this season's robot.

Harmony Schafer sewing the bumpers for the robot

Luke Rau and Mentor Wayne Smith working on a robot bracket.

The members are using different computer programs and learning tools to help build, program, and market their projects.

"Our build team members are learning CAD on Solidworks and fabricating parts on our vertical mill, lathe, and CNC router," Rau said. "Our programmers are learning to code in Java, and our marketing team members are learning how to organize events, facilitate activities, and establish a brand. I’m very excited to have our team demonstrate all they’ve learned throughout this season's build and hopefully see similar success in competition play as we did last year."

For more information, visit bc26gottschalk.wixsite.com/my-site-2.

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