Our team consists of 33 active members, two coaches, several mentors, and amazing parents who all support our team to the fullest. The structure of our team is split into four groups:

Meet The Team

Our History

Our team began in 2014 with the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The Jaegernauts, our team name, have competed in FRC every year since. Starting in 2018, we also joined the BEST competition and have been competing strongly since then. The Jaegernauts were founded by Mr. Richard Muenich, who got the team started and was its leader. In 2022, leadership was transferred to Mr. Mason Cardiff, who has been leading the team to this day. 

When we began, the space we were given for a workshop was hardly a 10' by 10' area. Additionally, we shared the space not only with the electrical breaker and other maintenance, but also the janitor's office and the Fencing club's storage. Mr. Muenich also used his classroom, which doubled as a science lab, for Robotics work. Though cramped for space, we had a strong start, and our original team managed to pull together robots from string and wood.

Though the team had so little space, Robotics was still wildly popular, quickly becoming known as one of the biggest clubs on campus. From this popularity, we secured more school funding along with multiple fundraisers. We used that to make their current space safer and got more power tools to upgrade the quality of our robots.

As time passed, though, the hype around Robotics died as members graduated. Our number slipped lower and lower, and the funding stopped coming as quickly. Things were looking bleak, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. 

The seniors of 2020, which made up the majority of the team, knew they needed to find more members before they graduated. So as the incoming freshmen came looking for clubs, they launched an intense marketing effort, and recruited new members that would become a tight-knit group of great engineers, designers, builders, programmers, and marketers. The seniors passed on all they knew to us, the freshmen, and used their last year at MECHS to cultivate the next generation.

These new members continued the seniors' legacy, and Mr. Muenich supported us. He secured us a 3D printer and more tool replacements, and guided the team in creating roles and managing ourselves until we were a well-oiled machine.

As we grew into our roles on the team, administration changed. Two years after the class of 2020 graduated, Mr. Muenich left the school for other opportunities, though he still visited on occasion. The new technology teacher, Mr. Cardiff, took over, and his new style of leadership brought us to even bigger heights, securing better tools, including a CNC machine, mentorship, and new experiences for the members.

The first year Mr. Cardiff took over, the Jaegernauts received a trophy for 4th place in the BEST competition. This award would have let us go to the state level competition, which we eagerly began to prep for. However, fate didn't let us off so easily, and only 2 days later, a message came from the coordinators of BEST, saying there had been a score miscalculation, and they would not be going to state after all. This disheartened all of us greatly, but we forged onward through the FIRST competition. 

It was about that time that we realized history was repeating itself: our numbers were dwindling as the members once again aged out, and there were only 12 members left, all members of the class of 2024. So, recruitment plans began. At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, we plastered posters all over the walls and went to classes personally to advertise. When we hosted our first meeting with the interested members, we got more than we could ever have hoped for. The team had gained 26 people, making a total of 38 members!

We, the class of 2024, threw ourselves into mentoring the new recruits as our predecessors had done for us, and even now we're setting things up for future generations. As we go into competition once more, all we can say is: Go Jaegernauts!