Notus Robotics World Championship

***If you would still like to donate, please send a check made out to Notus Jr./Sr. High School to 25257 Notus Rd., Caldwell ID 83607. THANK YOU!!!***

Our team recently learned we qualified for the World Championship competition in Houston, Texas. Notus is a very small school in Western Idaho, with about 25 students per class. Many of the students attending Notus come from families who are involved in agriculture, and don’t have a background in technology.

Recently, Notus put together a team of 5 students, with a teacher and a parent advisor assisting. Our team is relatively young; we have four freshman, and one sophomore. The team attended the Regional Robotics competition in Boise in March. Notus was late to register, and had never participated before. Teams which attended the competition came from Idaho, California, and Utah, and many teams had 20-30 kids per team. We built our robot with no prior experience, and as a result, it was a challenging process, and we learned a great deal. Larger teams at the competition had cargo trailers with sponsor logos, and rolling Craftsman tool kits. Notus had no sponsors for the competition; we arrived with our robot on a parent’s shop cart- which was a tad too small for the robot, and whatever tools we had “borrowed” from our parents, which we carried in plastic totes .

Two teams advanced to the World Championship from the Idaho competition- both based out of Boise. Notus was awarded the “Rookie All Star” award at the Idaho competition on March 22, 2024. After the competition, on March 27, Notus was advised that a “wild card” spot had opened up, and we had been invited to the World Championship Robotics competition in Houston, Texas on April 16-20, 2024.

Although the competition is only about 2 weeks away , and most hotel rooms near the convention center are booked, and flights are expensive, the Notus team is dedicated to finding a way to attend the competition. There is little time to hold fundraisers, so we are sending letters to businesses we hope will help provide funds to allow us to attend the World Championship in Houston.