MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon high school freshman Austin Anderson wants to be an aerospace engineer. A seventh grader in the district, Amanda Misarti, also has aspirations to work with space craft, specifically through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Both are a part of Mount Vernon’s robotics teams, offered at the middle and high school level.
Several of the students on these teams are headed to showcase their engineering skills at state competitions March 11 and 12 at the Marion County Fairgrounds and Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
The district created a team for middle schoolers three years ago and added a high school team this school year due to increasing student interest, said robotics coach Emily Miller, who is also the sixth and seventh grade math teacher.
A total of 30 Mount Vernon students are involved with robotics, 20 in middle school and 10 in high school.
The district’s teams qualified for their respective state competitions by winning tournaments as well as receiving various awards during regional competitions throughout the past several months.
The middle and high school teams are broken down into smaller teams for competitions. Three of the four middle school teams and one of the two high school teams will advance to state.
All teams are named after Mount Vernon’s zip code — 43050.
High School
The high school team advancing to state, #43050Z, qualified through its skills ranking at the Highland Vex Robotics Competition High School Qualifier on Feb. 26.
This team includes junior Sophia Zoldak (captain, engineering notebook recorder and head scout), freshman Austin Anderson (builder, scout and coder), freshman Sawyer Boggs (head coder), freshman Hunter Thompson (head builder) and freshman Simon Peterson (driver).
Anderson, the aspiring aerospace engineer, first joined robotics in eighth grade after learning about the program following his move to the district in seventh grade.
“I wanted to join just because I was super interested in science, technology, engineering and math, you know, all STEM-related stuff,” Anderson said.
Before joining the robotics team, Anderson had taught himself how to code using online resources, specifically using a website called scratch developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for young people to learn coding.
His involvement in Mount Vernon’s robotics team has allowed him to refine those preliminary skills.
“Before, I would do more trial and error stuff,” Anderson explained, “but now I can measure and then work off of measurements instead of just guessing.”
While some students, such as Anderson, enter the team with prior knowledge, for others the robotics team is their first introduction to coding and related skills.
Robotics coach Emily Miller said the district is looking into offering Project Lead the Way Program at the middle school level starting next school year to help students gain background knowledge before entering the team.
Middle School
Middle school team #43050B qualified for state three separate ways. The team includes eight graders Mason Chesnut (captain, head builder and driver), Isabella Sherman (coder) and Natasha Jost (engineering notebook recorder and scout).
They received the design award at the Highland VRC Blended Holiday Qualifier in Sparta, Ohio; another design award at the US Army VRC Blended Tipping Point Tournament in Norwalk, Ohio; and were tournament champions of the Highland VRC Middle School Qualifier in Sparta, Ohio.
Another of the middle school teams, #43050C, also qualified for state by being tournament champions at the Highland VRC Middle School Qualifier in Sparta, Ohio.
When a team wins a tournament, it does so along with another team that it forms an alliance with for the competition. In the case of the competition in Sparta, two of Mount Vernon’s teams were able to form an alliance because of their mutually high rankings, coach Miller said.
The #43050C team also won the judges award at the Highland VRC Blended Holiday Qualifier. This team includes eighth graders Aspen McMahon (captain and head builder), Lily Grace (engineering notebook recorder), as well as seventh graders Shaun Barlow (builder), Carsten Hahn (driver) and Scout Nathan Hofferberth (coder).
The third state-qualifying middle school team, #43050E, received the excellence award at the Mount Vernon Energy Field House VRC Blended Tipping Point Qualifier.
This team includes eighth graders Grant Mesarchik (captain, head builder), Sala Glandon (head engineering notebook recorder, scout and assistant to coach), Ben Henricksen (head coder), as well as seventh graders Myla Miller (coder), Megan Packard (builder) and Hailey Waibel (builder and engineering notebook recorder).
Mesarchik, captain, had no prior robotics experience before joining the team in seventh grade. Now, robotics is what Mesarchik looks forward to most each day.
“It’s my favorite part of the day every single day because I get to do something that I actually enjoy outside of school,” Mesarchik said. “And, I just enjoy building and spending time with the people in robotics.”
Mesarchik competed at the state level last year but this year anticipates greater success.
“I feel really highly that we’re going to get to to world’s this year,” Mesarchik said, referring to the competition after state hosted in Texas this year.
While seventh grader Amanda Misarti’s team, #43050A, will not be competing in the state competition, her team received the judges award at the Loudonville HS VEX VRC “Tipping Point” Qualifier.
Misarti is the coder of her team. She first became interested in coding when she learned code was the building block of the video games she enjoyed playing.
Similar to Anderson, Misarti used free websites to initially learn to code and has further developed her skills through Mount Vernon’s robotics team.
But both Anderson and Misarti have learned more than technical skills through their participation in their respective teams.
“Since you’re on a team and you have to work together, I’ve gotten a lot better at listening to people,” Misarti said. “I used to be more of like, whenever there was a project I’d want to do it alone, but now I’m more attuned to teamwork.”
Similarly, Anderson has learned to work with teammates and to adapt.
“Learning how to make a plan is a big thing,” Anderson said. “Because before the coder can code, usually we help the builders build the bot because we can’t code until the bots built. So we have to usually help them build, which involves making a plan and putting the plan into action, and when you run into problems you have to remake the plan.
“So I really have gotten better at thinking through stuff and making a good plan.”
Anderson’s team attended the state competition last year as well, which he said had been an intimidating experience. This year he feels more prepared.
“I feel like I know now what I plan to experience, and know what I plan to see at state, because last year I just walked in not knowing what I was going to be walking into,” he said.
Regardless of the outcome, Anderson will be continuing to participate and grow through the robotics team for years to come.
“I plan to stick with it,” he said. “I really enjoy doing it, and it’s it’s really fun to do with friends and just, you know, learning about all this, coding and doing some fun stuff.”
The same is true for Misarti.
“Robotics has been very fun this year,” she said, “and I think anyone who would want to think about joining should definitely do it.”
