Lakerbots head to World Championships!!

The Interlakes Middle-High School Robotics Team, the LAKERBOTS, have officially qualified to participate in the FIRST Robotics World Championships Event in Houston, Texas!!!

The LAKERBOTS work together with a lead coach and several mentors to design, manufacture, build, and program a robot from scratch each year in the New England District Robotics Competition. This robot must accomplish tasks required by the game challenges to score points. After placing 7th and then 3rd at our two regular season events, and winning a Sustainability Award, the team earned a spot at the District Championship Event. This week the team competed with 45 other teams and placed 3rd in our Wilson Division. Due to their awesome performance this entire season, the LAKERBOTS placed 23rd out of 180+ teams at the end of the season qualifying us for Robotics World Championships Event in Houston, Texas!!!

The FIRST Robotics World Championship Event costs a significant amount beyond what our team has for funding and therefore we are asking for financial support from our incredible community. The LAKERBOTS students worked hard to successfully obtain grants and sponsorships over the last six (6) months, totaling $40,000, which funded the registrations and travel for two regular season events and District Champs, but the Houston event is far outside our budget. We would love to take our entire hard-working and dedicated team to this incredible event, but due to cost and logistics, we can only bring a small team, the team captains and sub-team leaders.

Gratefully, the ILSD school board has approved financial support for a portion of the cost. The added challenge to raising the remaining funds is that we have just over ONE WEEK to do this as our team would fly out on April 18th and compete in the World Championship Event from April 19th - 22nd. We are looking for community donations to help cover the remaining travel costs. If you are able to donate a larger amount we request that you contact our lead mentor Joe Derrick at the Interlakes Middle High-School directly.

Please help our amazing LAKERBOTS 8046 Team of students and mentors get to Houston, TX to compete in the FIRST Robotics World Championships and represent the Interlakes Middle-High School at this unbelievable worldwide robotics competition. All funds will be used to pay for event registration, airfare, hotel and food for team members. THANK YOU AND GO LAKERBOTS!

BACKGROUND: The LAKERBOTS 8046 Team was created in 2019 by STEM Teacher Joe Derrick and had a successful first rookie season with eight (8) students. Then in 2019-2020 season, COVID hit and the competitions were canceled for the next two seasons. After extensive outreach efforts and invitations to all 9-12 graders, the team opened up to 7th and 8th graders to help build up the team and we reached nearly 20 students in 2021 and 27 total in 2022. The LAKERBOTS recently won the Sustainability Award for expanding the team and building the foundation for the future.

This dedicated group of students is responsible for CAD designing, prototyping, CNC manufacturing of custom parts, modifying stock parts, building and assembling, and programming the robot from scratch which must accomplish game challenges to score points. In addition to having a solid and effective robot design, there is a dedicated drive team that drives and operates the robot during each match, a pit crew that performs emergency repairs during events and a business team that assists with fundraising, social media, team gear and travel logistics. There are countless opportunities for students to get involved and engaged within the LAKERBOTS Robotics Team. This is an extra-curricular activity where everyone can “GO PRO” in their future careers.

Please consider donating to help the LAKERBOTS Robotics Team make this amazing opportunity to attend the FIRST Robotics World Championship a reality and represent the Interlakes School District in Houston, Texas! Thank you in advance for your support!