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When Archbishop Spalding High School robotics team won their District Championship last year, it qualified them to compete in the FIRST World Championships in Detroit.

You would have thought that they had won a trip to Disney World.

High school teachers Anna DiGuilian and Amy Brunner coach Archbishop Spalding High School’s robotics team, the CAV-ineers. Both women are engineering teachers with 30 years of experience between them.

“Throughout the (last) season,” Brunner explains, “random team members would shout out in the middle of a meeting, ‘We’re going to Worlds!’”

The students continued vocalizing their new slogan whenever possible until they made it happen. The team did go to Worlds last year and won their division beating 64 other teams. At the time, when asked what was next for the team, Brunner replied without hesitation, “To go back to Worlds!”

And so, under the direction of their coaches Brunner and DiGuilian, the CAV-ineers won their 2019 District Championship on April 13 at George Mason University.

Now 65 members strong, the students from Spalding competed with 57 other robotics teams from schools throughout Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., to win their district. Once again, the CAV-ineers earned themselves a spot in the 2019 FIRST World Championships and will travel to Detroit April 24-27, where they would compete for the second year in a row.

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For the coaches and the team, the biggest highlight of their second trip to the World Championships in Detroit, was that they earned a second trip.

While at the 2019 FIRST Robotics World Championships, the CAV-ineers were ranked an impressive 26 out of the 68 teams on their field. This standing allowed the team to advance to the quarterfinals where they were eliminated in the first round.

“For us to qualify two years in a row, is an achievement in and of itself,” Brunner said.

“We met teams from all over the world. It was fantastic to see how people from different backgrounds and different cultures solve the same problem differently. To see their designs and robots and to be able to discuss their design process was exciting.”

Every year, the number of graduating seniors varies as does the impact it has on the team the following year. Additionally, as each senior leaves the team, they take any expertise they gained with them.

“Last year we lost 14 seniors but still had 42 returning team members,” Brunner explains.

“The we added 23 new team members this year, for a total of 65 team members.”

Brunner said the coaches also have a plan in place to retain some of that outgoing expertise to pass along to the remaining members of the team.

“As a team, we’ve built an internal mentoring strategy where we have a leadership team that is responsible for training, mentoring, and passing on valuable technical expertise to the underclassmen,” Brunner said.

Two graduating seniors, Catherine Kosiba and Carter Miller for example, were called the “heart and soul” of this year’s competition for their ability to lead others.

Carter took on the job of controlling the robot out on the field during competitions after joining the team just last year, while Catherine, “Katie” to her friends and team mates, created a system lead job and organized the flow of tasks for groups to work on the robot as time permitted.

It was contributions like these, combined with the support and effort of all its members, that provided the team with the incentive to do well at Worlds, and throughout the year as well.

“Our students persevered, they came in last place in their first event,” Brunner said.

“It was humbling and difficult. They worked through the hardships and performed much better at their second event, in fact, they won several awards at their second event. From there, they went to their third event and won it. It was about perseverance and never giving up.”

While Spalding’s FIRST Robotics Team #4541 loves robots and competitions, Brunner says that they are more than just robots. It falls under the larger, STEM umbrella: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.

“We want to help inspire others and to get them involved in STEM,” Brunner announced. “We created an initiative two years ago called the Catholic Robotics League (CRL) with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Our aim is to help our fellow schools to start and offer robotics programs. We target our K-8 schools because we can offer mentorship and help their teams. Just this month, we’ve worked with three schools, helping with their STEM nights or giving them tours of our labs.”

CRL also offers workshops on programming and building robots and public speaking. The student-led workshops have accommodated 12 schools and over 200 people over the past year.

“We want to spread the message of FIRST and make STEM accessible to Maryland youth,” Brunner concluded.

As for the Archbishop Spalding CAV-ineers, the team is ready for a “three-peat” as they are calling it. They want to qualify to compete at Worlds for a third year in a row. Perhaps three is a winning charm.

To submit news for Severn, Hanover, Jessup, Harmans, Fort George G. Meade and Maryland City, contact Sharon P. Schultz at pinkladysps@gmail.com.

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