My Robotics Experience

By Angelina Anastasio

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a robotics program compiled of four different levels. It is for all ages, K-12th grade. FTC (First Tech Challenge) is the program that I am currently doing, it is for mid and high schoolers.

I started robotics when I was only 6. Just last year I chose to move on to the next level that required learning design processes, programming, building our own parts out of metal and plastic, and learning to use power tools. I wasn’t really interested in robotics when we started. I wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer, not an engineer. But my sister and I started a team anyway, with a few other friends of ours. No one had any idea what we were doing, except for my sister. We were all just doing our best and learning what we could. After a while I really started to enjoy it! I successfully learned how to build and design a part all on my own.

We made it to our first competition, however, we did not make it to the next level. So we went home and prepared for our next competition. We had multiple all day meetings and days where only one person would come just to practice driving the robot quickly. It was a very exciting and stressful time. At our second competition, we won the champions award, and we were only a rookie team! We were very proud of ourselves and excited for the possibilities to come. ​

At the state competition we did not do so well. The entire robot broke down, everyone was tired and irritable, and we couldn’t get anything to work no matter how hard we tried. Our coach reminded us that we had to try our best and trust in The Lord. Unfortunately the robot did not start miraculously working. We came in almost last place. Everyone was very disappointed. But now as we look back and we see that we did our best, we also see that it was probably a good thing that we didn’t move on. I say that not because we did not want to move on, not because we couldn’t have handled it, but because everyone was exhausted and frustrated. We would have liked to make it to Worlds, but it was God’s will that we didn’t and we needed to learn to trust in His plan and learn to have fun and not stress so much.
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We performed some troubleshooting with the robot this summer and did our fundraising and planning. We are currently waiting in anticipation for the 2018-2019 challenge to come out. We are all very excited and can’t wait to see what we accomplish in this next season.
Robotics has been a chance for me to explore the wonderful world of engineering and a possible career opportunity. I am so glad that I chose to start a robotics team. It has been such a blessing to work with these other girls. I am so lucky to call them my teammates.
I hope that other kids will be brave, try something new and unexpected, and end up loving it, just as I did.

Angelina Anastasio

I am 13 years old and I have been homeschooled all my life.