This marks the first year that Lion Robotics will not be competing with FIRST Robotics Competition. 

This was not a decision we made, but one forced upon us. We are sad to see the team be forced out of competing in the first season since the team started in 2009.

So, what happened?

Our district fell into a budget shortfall during the 2024-25 school year. The superintendent said that there wouldn't be any programs cut and they would limit the impact on students. They lied. In Early Spring 2025, our coach was informed that the Engineering and Robotics program was being cut from Auburn Mountainview High School. We finished out the 2025 season and tried to work with Mrs. Terri Herren, our principal, to create a path forward for Lion Robotics. We were told that we needed to remove all of our equipment from the school building and that the team was being forced out until it could be restarted in the future.

We tried to keep the opportunity to engage with STEM opportunities through FIRST Robotics an option for the Auburn Mountainview High School community. It ended up being that Mrs. Herren's decision to rip away our resources, area to work, and financial support for our team was too large of a hurdle for us to overcome. 

We were not surprised that Mrs. Herren did this because she had been an inconsistent ally for years. Our team had struggled to come back from the Covid shutdown and hadn't been performing as well as we had prior to the pandemic. We did not bring the awards home from competitions, but successfully applied our learning to create an inclusive and fun team experience. Our focus was spreading STEM opportunities to the community as a whole and not just our school. This was not as well received as we anticipated. We had several incidents where the school administration decided that we needed to be held to a higher standard than other clubs and teams. The administration never attended any of our events or team meetings. Pulling the support for the team was just the final step of showing that they did not value student access to Engineering and Robotics programs.

Hopefully, we will see a new administration come in that values the concept of a Robotics Team now that Mrs. Herren is retiring. At that point, Lion Robotics might be able to make a comeback. For the time being, we will continue learning and building on our own as Mrs. Herren has made it clear that Engineering and Robotics has no place at Auburn Mountainview High School.