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The S.M.A.C.K. Attack all girl robotics team from Hamilton Heights Middle School is ready for competition on Tuesday, March 19, 2019.
Michelle Pemberton, michelle.pemberton@indystar.com
ARCADIA — A week before the state competition earlier this month, five girls at Hamilton Heights Middle School watched as the robot they poured hours into building was accidentally bumped off the table. It smashed into pieces on the ground.
The eighth-graders had assembled it over months, cataloging each trial and error in a 5-inch-thick binder full of sketches, research and photos. Now they had just days to rebuild and reprogram it to meet this year’s challenge.
The situation wasn’t looking good, they said. But whether they realized it, the rapid rebuild wasn’t the first major obstacle the team had overcome. The first one was putting together a robotics team at the small, rural school district in Arcadia, about 30 minutes north of Carmel.
With about 540 students, Hamilton Heights Middle School is less than half the size of their southern neighbor’s middle schools.
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Cassidy Felger, from the S.M.A.C.K. Attack all girl robotics team, writes on the “What has robotics taught me?” wall, “That with hard work, we can accomplish anything.” at Hamilton Heights Middle School in Arcadia Ind. on Tuesday, March 19, 2019. (Photo: Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar)
Bringing robotics to Hamilton Heights
Teacher Lacy Bowyer said she left her job teaching fifth grade to start elective classes and a robotics team program at the middle school last year. At first, Bowyer said, she didn’t know what she was doing. Sure, she loved teaching science to fifth-graders, but that hardly made her an engineer.
What the school principal was looking for, she realized, was someone who could connect with students.
One of the school’s teams went on to win third place at state and earned a spot in the Worlds competition. Bowyer, who didn’t see many other female coaches at competitions, was named “mentor of the year.”
The school gave them enough money to start the club, she said, but going to Worlds came with a $3,000 price tag. Her students raised it within a week.
Now she has a robot-shaped cookie jar and a robot-patterned pillow decorating her desk and a table full of trophies in her classroom, which doubles as a workshop for the robotics club.
This year the students have thrown parties, spoken at local organizations and held spirit nights at local restaurants to raise the $7,000 they needed to keep going.
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‘It’s not just for boys’
Four of the five girls who make up S.M.A.C.K. Attack (a compilation of their initials) — Sydni Zedrauskas, Anna Rickey, Cassidy Felger and Kaylee Rhoton — were on a team together last year, a team they hoped to keep to girls. But one boy needed a spot.
“We wanted it to be an all-girl team,” Kaylee said, nodding toward the boys in the room, “to prove to them because they like to smack talk us.”
This year, with the addition of Madyson Eshelman, they became one of the few entirely female teams they see at competitions.
“It’s not just for boys like people think,” Anna said.
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The girls knew each other from other clubs and sports. Sydni, Anna and Kaylee play golf. Madyson and Cassidy play soccer. Most of them are in the school’s business club and National Honor Society. They’re thinking about being doctors or nurses or athletic trainers one day.
They’ve worked through some drama over splitting up responsibilities and know each other’s strengths. Sydni, Madyson and Kaylee prefer driving. Cassidy and Madyson enjoy programming. Anna and Cassidy focus on compiling their detailed notes into a binder to submit for judging.
Cassidy said they hope their team shows other girls that they can do great things.
“Originally I just joined because I thought I’d have fun with Mrs. Bowyer,” she said. “It really opened my mind to the possibilities.”
‘They shocked us all’
Leading up to state, the team was preparing during study hall and even during passing periods in addition to their regular three practices a week. But when their robot fell off the table, it looked like all the effort may have been for nothing.
This year their robot had to push and stack different plastic cylinders into the corners of their competition area, then finish by hanging over a wooden pole more than a foot off the ground. They have one minute. The more their robot can do, the more points they score.
Anna said she tried desperately to rebuild their robot, but it wasn’t working. In the end, one of the school’s other teams that didn’t qualify for state donated their robot.
The girls said they had one night to alter and reprogram it to fit their design. But they did it.
S.M.A.C.K Attack won their division at state on March 9 using the Frankenstein robot, beating 50 other teams. They also won first place for their engineer notebook, that 5-inch binder.
“They shocked us all,” Bowyer said.
Now they’re preparing for the national competition in Iowa on April 1 and Worlds in Kentucky on April 28. More importantly, Bowyer said, they’re better problem-solvers, taking the lead in projects for other classes.
“They’re not afraid to fail,” she said.
Contact IndyStar reporter Emma Kate Fittes at 317-513-7854 or efittes@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter: @IndyEmmaKate
Read or Share this story: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/hamilton-county/education/2019/03/22/hamilton-heights-robotics-team-surprises-everyone-winning-state/3163220002/
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