The Rebel Alliance is the robotics team name which has been part of Owatonna High School for multiple years. Many OHS students should get to know this unique club as there are five positions that transform into one cohesive unit. Those positions are: building, electrical, programming (coding), business and strategy. 

In robotics they are faced with a different challenge each year, this challenge is the task in which the club has to accomplish throughout the season. The amount of time and effort that goes into making the correct robot takes about three months. During these three months, the team is trying to meet the standards of the FIRST Robot Competition, which is an organization of robotics and competitions. 

The OHS Robotics Club has a lot of goals and achievements. Adviser Mr. Shaun Robbin said, “I want to be able to compete in every aspect of the challenge. I want to continue seeing our older members taking the time to help teach and lead the younger members of this team.” This is a goal of the team to achieve this upcoming season. With hard-work, effort and discipline, the club will try their best to achieve their goals and crush the competition this upcoming robotics season. 

Competitions in robotics are organized into different alliances, alliances are different teams within the competition. The OHS robotics team name is the Rebel Alliance. Competitions have a qualifying round that determines the seeding of the playoff. Senior captain Dylan Meiners said, “We are not sure yet who the top teams will be, but we know that there will be tough competition at the regionals.”  COVID-19 had a twist on the competition, as the competition last year was virtual. The club members had to build their robot at the school with protocols such as: social distancing, masking up, sanitizing material and more. The OHS Robotics Club has two competitions a year. These competitions will be held in Duluth and Minneapolis. 

Throughout the years, the robotics club has made different robots. Junior David Smith said, “Zion (our last robot) was really fun because the team worked really hard on it and it came out to be a very successful and competitive robot.” Building a robot involves easy and difficult tasks such as programming and designing of the robot. The easier tasks include working as a team and trying different tactics and techniques. Whereas, the difficult tasks are finding the correct measurements of the robot, as well as testing and experimenting different techniques to have the robot perform the correct tasks.