By: Lily Keeley and Cami Felsing
The Circuit Girls Robotics Team is made up of five brilliant high school girls who are trying to inspire others and, most importantly, have fun. The members include seniors Anna Hoen, Aimee Chen, and Shradda Nambiar from Ponte Vedra High School (PVHS), as well as senior Sierra Leinenbach from Creekside High School and junior Pranavi Penmetsa from Nease High School. The club fosters creativity and problem-solving skills that are crucial for future careers in the STEM field.
Centered around building robots for competitions, the club is very good at what they do. First, the team builds the robot, codes it, and practices driving it before competing. The robot is made to play a game designed each year by VEX Robotics. The Circuit Girls travel all over Florida and visit other states to compete against different teams. There, they battle in games to win awards and qualifications to higher level competitions. They have accomplished many achievements, including being Tournament Champions, which qualified them for States, and Innovate at States, which qualified them for Worlds, which is an international competition. Only about 140 teams are invited to Worlds out of the 10,000 teams that compete, so it is a big achievement.
In their competitions, the team is randomly assigned to work with a partner, whom they may not know, for each match, and must work together to win. In the match, they play against another team of two, and whoever scores the most points in the VEX game wins. The teams that win get their ranks raised. After the qualifying rounds are over, the team gets to choose a partner that complements their robot and works with them in the elimination match. Here, if anyone loses a match, they are eliminated from the tournament. After the competition is over, the remaining teams are handed awards for a variety of categories. Only a select few awards qualify the teams for invitational competitions.
Anna Hoen enjoys the problem-solving and programming aspects of robotics and joined the Circuit Girls because she, “thought it would be fun and would give me some good experience.” Like most of the girls, Hoen has been doing robotics since she was in elementary school. She wants to find a career programming robots. Sponsored by Michael Costello, the team meets three times a week. In their meetings, they build, test, and code their robot and practice driving it. They also document their building and coding process, as well as each meeting’s activities. They also always find time to have fun when they can. Hoen shared that the team’s goals for this year “are to get an award at worlds, inspire others, and have fun!”
Pictured: Anna Hoen, Aimee Chen, Shradda Nambiar and their teammates from neighboring schools, Nease, and Creekside
