Four weeks into the very short six week season, the Owatonna High School Robotics team, known as the Rebel Alliance, are only days away from the completion of their primary robot. On Feb. 19 the team will officially be done with the robot and will be hosting a “bag and tag” event where people can come see the finished robot in the OHS A plaza area.

The OHS Robotics team will be competing in two regional events. The first regional competition will be held in the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center from Mar. 6 to Mar. 9, 2019. The second regional will be held in the La Crosse Center from Apr. 3 to Apr. 6, 2019. If the robotics team wins either one of the regionals or the Chairman’s Award they will qualify for nationals, which will be held in Detroit, Michigan in late April.

There are four different groups in robotics: build, electric, marketing, and programming. The build team, led by senior Jace Hendricks and junior Evan Krueger, is responsible for finalizing designs and putting the robot together. The electrical team, led by junior Kaleb Enter, is responsible for putting all of the electrical components on the robot and for taking care of the batteries that power the robot. The programming team, led by sophomore Nick Pilcher, is responsible for making the robot move and function correctly. Finally, the marketing team, led by junior Alex Lowery, is responsible for getting sponsorships and writing the Chairman’s Award. To support the Rebel Alliance, local community members and alumni of the team volunteer their time daily to mentor the different teams in their specific fields.

Due to generous business donations and local fundraising, 2019 will be the first year the team is going to be building a shadow bot. The shadow bot will be a replica robot identical to the primary one. The benefit of the replica robot is so the team can test and fix any problems while the primary robot is “bagged and tagged,” meaning the primary cannot be touched or worked on prior to the Duluth regional. Robotics director, Mrs. Val Rose said, “One of the biggest goals this year was to have a second robot built and finally have a shadow robot.” An extra side team will be working on building the shadow bot while the rest of the students will still be focusing on the primary robot.

This year the biggest challenge has been dealing with all of the lost time due to the snow days. The team is trying to regain some of that time by staying late every day after school and working six days a week. Even though the team missed four days due to school being canceled, they are still on schedule to get the robot done before “bag and tag” night on Feb. 19.