Sterling High School robotics team gearing up for Peoria competition

STERLING – Sterling High School’s robotics team is preparing for an engineering competition like no other.

SHS math teacher Alexis Rivera is the robotics team’s leading mentor. He said a robotics club began in 2016 and tries to create a space for students to develop their interest in technology and develop imagination and skills that are going to be used in their future by creating and building a robot that’s going to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition on March 19-22 in Peoria.

The FRC is an annual global robotics competition in which teams of students, mentors and volunteers build robots to compete in a themed game.

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The Sterling High School robotics team works on the team's robot Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (Brandon Clark)

Teams have six weeks to design, build and test a robot that can complete the competition goals, which are issued by FIRST in January. The robots must meet specific guidelines and perform various tasks during the competition, such as picking up and placing objects while navigating obstacles. This year’s theme is “Reefscape.”

“This year, we need to manipulate a piece of pipe that is 4 inches in diameter and a foot long and put it on a peg on what we call the reef,” Rivera said. “That is a structure in the center of the field. For every peg that you put on different heights, you get different points. We also need to manipulate a big ball and pick it up from the reef and put it in a hole in the wall.”

The competition consists of qualification matches, where robots compete in alliances with two other random teams. Teams try to score as many points as possible based on the game’s rules, and the top-ranked teams move on to elimination rounds where new alliances are formed to battle for the championship. Teams also can participate in various regional, national and international events throughout the season.

“The FRC has been around for 36 years, and they have around 8,000 to 10,000 teams around the world,” Rivera said. “We compete in two different regional competitions to try to get to the World Championship in Houston. Our two competitions are going to be in a couple of weeks in Peoria and then two weeks later in Milwaukee.”

Students are welcome to join the club regardless of experience. Rivera said the club uses a “community learning system” to teach hands-on skills, such as using 3D printers and CNC machines, from Rivera, their peers and volunteer mentors.

“A specific skill is taught by mentors, and after that second year, the person that received that skill teaches it to somebody else with the supervision of a mentor,” Rivera said. “On the third year, the mentor is removed, and the two-year knowledgeable student becomes a mentor.”

Jeff Cutter is a union electrician who started volunteering as a mentor for the team after grandson Brevin Folsom asked him for help.

“I got involved last year and became super invested,” Cutter said. “It’s been a blast helping the kids build these robots. Having been an electrician for 40 years, I sometimes skip steps in my head because I already know what to do and have to remember to go back and explain why I did something. It’s amazing to see them design something they created from scratch.”

Mentors like Cutter help foster a sense of leadership and responsibility among the team.

Ninth grade SHS student Loren Fox is in charge of the robot’s swirl system.

“The swirl system is the driving system of the robot,” Fox said. “We have two motors for it called the Kraken and the Neo. The Kraken is for going back and forth, and the Neo changes the axis without it having to stop.”

Loren joined the robotics team two years ago after her older brother and SHS senior Austin Fox encouraged her to give it a try. Austin has been with the team for four years and is one of its leading mentors.

“It can be hard and stressful work but I enjoy it,” Austin said. “It’s liberating knowing that I’m able to help the newer people and I enjoy teaching them all the intricate details of what we’re supposed to do and what we’ve already done.”

Ninth grade student Gewelious Jenkins is one of the team’s designers. He is currently working on a special bracket for the team’s robot.

“We’re trying to design a bracket that can hold these two pieces together based on the bearings,” Jenkins said. “As it holds the bearings together, we’ll need to find the diameter, then we can find how long it has to be from the center. After we know those dimensions, we’ll add it onto a bracket of our own and create a hole depending on how big it’s supposed to be. Then, we will add everything through a CAD app and print it out at the CNC machine.”

Rivera said the robotics team would not be possible without fundraising efforts and donations from local businesses and the community, which are matched by the Sterling Schools Foundation.

“They see what we are doing and they feel the growth of the team,” Rivera said. “They understand that these kids are the future.”