Scott Winkenweder is a Freshman at McMinnville High School. He is on the robotics team because he joined the robotics team at his middle school and decided to continue being in robotics throughout high school. He joined robotics in the first place because he was interested in programming and wanted to hone his skills in such a field. However, he ended up as a builder because he has much less experience in programming than he once thought. He stayed on the robotics team because it has helped his communication and teamwork skills, as well as increased his knowledge of the mechanical. Since this is his first year on a high school robotics team, he is not sure how well the team will do but is confident that the team will do much better than his middle school team did.
Prescott Benner is Junior that has worked on a variety of different robotics teams. He was on a FLL robotics team called the Yellow Rubber Ducky Engineers in 2013 and 2014. That competition required all of the team members to be able to do basic programming. The entire competition used an autonomous robot so he also learned how to efficiently maneuver robots and think of the most effective way to score points. His specialty on that theme was to build the overall robot and create accessories and implements that were for manipulating specific objects on the table. In 2015 he joined a Duniway FTC robotics team called Lord of the Gears and that is where he learned how to use the tetrix robotics kits. On that theme he worked mainly on a scissor lift mechanism that would be used to elevate bales 18 Inches. He learned a lot from this theme such as building a functional scissor lift is a bade adieu, especially under a deadline. In 2016 through 2017 I was on the MHS FTC team known as Blackbird. On this team he worked on a linear slide mechanism used to elevate a yoga ball 52 inches. He learned how to get things dune on a large theme by developing a specialty that he work on exclusively. He also learned how to collaborate with other builders that have different ideas than his own and create the best solution with other people. The most useful thing that he learned to create an effective team is to give each team member a specialty or particular part that they oversee will also letting many other people give input on the overall concept of each part. On all of these teams he was most effective as a builder. He can quickly draw 3D planes for an ideas and work to create the best solution with other people.
Michael Crain is a Sophomore at McMinnville High School. He joined the robotics team because he loved robotics. Him and his friend Jose applied for robotics in STEM in middle school and they really liked it. He joined the robotics team and has moved onto high school and is eager to start working on the robotics team. He has learned a lot about robotics and how to cooperate with other people. He has learned to listen to their ideas and opinions, and they are usually right. He has had a great time with his team learning and solving problems which has become an everyday thing. He really enjoy being on the robotics team, because we all home a really unique set of skills that give us the upper hand in the competition.
Carly Thorkildson is a sophomore at McMinnville High School and has been on robotics for four years now. She has moved from being head of the Engineering Notebook, to still being the head of the engineering notebook, but now also giving more input in the build process and programming work. Outside of robotics Carly is an avid swimmer, swimming either before or after every robotics meeting. Carly hopes that this year the team can make it to Regionals. It looks very promising that they will with an all-star team this year.
Faith Miller is a freshman at McMinnville High School and this is her third year on the robotics teams. For the past two years she has been on Aftershock. When she moved up to high school she was put on Blackbird. Faith was interested in robotics because her brother was on the robotics team and was an EASA student in high school. She was recommended by Mr. Murray, her middle school STEM teacher. She is currently an EASA student because if her interest in robotics. She. She enjoys playing soccer, spending time with family and friends, and just relaxing. She enjoys robotics and is glad that she is on the robotics team.
Lucca Hamina is a Junior attending McMinnville High School and he is involved in the EASA program. This is his third year in FTC, and my sixth year with the First program. I’ve always liked engineering and robotics since he was a young child, so when he first heard about FLL in grade school he was extremely interested. From that point he has tried to join any First program that he could. In the past he’s been apart of the building of the robot, but the last season he’s started to work more on fundraising and marketing, but he hopes to join backup with building and take over inventor 3D modeling.
Laura Denney is a sophomore at McMinnville High School. Her main role on the team is programming. This is her fourth year participating in FTC, third year as head programmer. Outside of robotics, she is usually at the pool, swimming. She is taking the EASA pathway (Engineering and Aerospace Academy) at school which takes place at the Evergreen Museum. She was interested in joining FTC in the seventh grade because she wanted to explore STEM outside of the classroom. She was on team 9058, but now she’s on team 11442. She really fell in love with participating in the program.She was very lucky we were able to bring the program from the middle school from the high school so she could continue to participate in this amazing program.
Cyrus Scarboro-Ford is a freshman at McMinnville High School. Originally He got interested in robotics in 7th grade, when one of the coaches and a good friend both invited him to join, but only started in eighth. He started out trying to sell merchandise, and is currently working on construction (primarily the mechanisms involved with manipulating balls). He also enjoys making dumb mistakes with his friend Scott. A few of Cyrus’s favorite pastimes are: reading good books, spending quality time with his family, and running around being random. Cyrus has recently became interested in expanding his repertoire of musical knowledge .