Lakes Area Robotics Provides Real-World Opportunities to Students
Finding innovative and creative solutions in a fast-paced environment sounds like a potential job description, but for members of Lakes Area Robotics it’s a part of regular conversation. Every year, these Spirit Lake High School students receive a challenge to solve real-world problems through the means of robotics. The students spend the winter developing, designing and building their robot to accomplish assigned tasks and then compete with it at FIRST Robotics Competitions (FRC) in the spring.
FRC combines the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology, and Spirit Lake has had a robotics team since 2015. At the time, their team was one of seven in the entire state and competed against large metropolitan schools and teams from other countries. Fast forward, there are 30 robotics teams in the state and Robotics coach Aaron Carr is appreciative of the community’s commitment and enthusiasm to sustain robotics for students in the Iowa Great Lakes area, especially when it’s rare to find a veteran team from a rural, small town community.
“As a student, I loved problem-solving and putting ideas into real things, which has now turned into my job,” Carr shared, one of Lakes Area Robotics mentors and a design engineer at AGCO in Jackson, MN. “Now, as a mentor, I get to provide that same experience to students and maybe help create a few coworkers for the future.”
Besides Carr, former Spirit Lake alumni and robotics members Joe Parks, Austin Thoreson, and Emery Groen, along with volunteer mentor and fellow engineer Andrew Nilles, all help mentor the current high school students. Once Robotics members, they are all now employed as engineers or in software electronics careers in area manufacturing companies in the region.
“The students’ passion and excitement for robotics is exciting to me and I love how they keep us on our toes,” Carr added. “It’s really exciting to see how our mentor team has come together to encourage these boys and girls in a field we’ve grown to love, partly from our initial interest in Robotics in the last ten years.”
Carr started mentoring the team three years ago, after former Spirit Lake industrial technology teacher and Robotics Coach Bob Kirchner retired from teaching.
“We’ve had big shoes to fill and are thankful to initially be involved with the program while students under Kirchner,” he shared. “The beauty of robotics is there are numerous career opportunities that are inspired by this extracurricular activity.”
Robotics Challenge
Every January, each Robotics team receives the year’s competition challenge. The theme is never the same and focuses on completely different real-world problems, making it hard to reuse items from previous years. One year focused on coral reefs while another theme was basketball, and they used giant green balls and PVC. In 2024, the team named their robot “Gary the Snail,” as it competed in a music themed challenge.
Three years ago, the team’s robot was built from 90% existing parts, while this year they purchased a used robot from a Fairmont, MN team, which provided them with significantly more power but at a lower cost.
“No matter what you are working with, you always have to be ready to make changes and sometimes even redesign or recode your robot during competition,” said senior Caleb Duhn. “Last year, the battery mount snapped in the middle of competition, and we had to change it on the fly.”
This year’s robot has wheels that can turn 360 degrees and has a lot of power, more so than other years. Aaron Kiner has enjoyed learning how to wire and code their robot.
“What some people don’t realize is you have to start at the very beginning and tell the robot that it’s a robot,” he said. “This year’s robot can go 20-30 feet per second and can go from end to end in competition in two to three seconds. In the code, you must share this information with each wheel and each motor.”
Carr said this robot is a significant upgrade for the team. There are two motors for every wheel, which means eight motors that can turn and drive independently. Part of the challenge is for the robot to put assigned items on a “coral reef,” without the robot leaving the ground. The team’s solution was to build an elevator that can go from eight inches to six feet to help complete each challenge.
“This is one of the reasons I really enjoy robotics because I get to work with my hands building stuff – I enjoy the challenge of robotics,” said junior Tucker Nikkel. “From CAD drawings to actually building the robot, it’s a lot of fun.”
This year’s team of fifteen students spends three days a week from January to April building and practicing with their robot. Under the direction of their mentors, the students learn STEM skills, including CAD Design, precision measuring and manufacturing, as well as wiring, coding and millwork.
“I really enjoy how Robotics has the team sport environment and how we get to work with our hands. There’s such a variety of skills to learn, whether you’re learning code, making parts for the robot or learning social media and video management,” senior Keegan Benge added. “I love the wide variety!”
Once complete, the group will compete in FIRST Robotics Competitions in Missouri and Cedar Falls, IA in late March. In the competition ring, there are ten different matches and challenges. The robots can go 3 on 3 with random teams and against random opponents.
“You never know who you will be going against or with,” Duhn explained. “One of the best parts of a match is figuring out how to compete against other teams’ strategies and overcome problems with your own robot.”
Rayvena Ussery added how she loves the competition time and the ability to meet new people, “It’s a lot of fun to go around the pit and talk to different teams from so many different places. Last year, we met kids from Brazil and China.”
Many of the larger tools the team uses to build their robot are provided by the Spirit Lake School System, as well as the space in the industrial tech building. Raw aluminum is provided by State Steel out of Spencer, while specialty tools and design equipment are purchased by the Robotics team with available funds.
“When we go to competitions, we are considered one of the veteran teams, despite being one of the smaller teams,” Carr explained. “It’s not easy to maintain funding, which makes our team an anomaly. We are really blessed to be a part of a supportive community with supportive area businesses,” Carr explained. “This investment is building future engineers and STEM related jobs for our region.”
This year, Lakes Area Robotics Booster Club was formed to help offset some of the costs of the team. The nonprofit organization comes alongside the school and the corporate sponsors to help bolster the middle school and high school programs.
Next year, Lakes Area Robotics will welcome interested high school students from Okoboji High School, similar to their other shared sports programs, and provide mentorship to Okoboji Middle School, as the Pioneers will start a FIRST Lego League.
“Our model for sustained success is unique for our area and we’d like to provide stability, funds, and passion to help other schools from small communities create teams, especially at the middle school level,” he shared. “If we could host a middle school competition in our region that would be exciting!”
If you’d like to be a sponsor for Lakes Area Robotics, contact Aaron Carr at LakesAreaRobotics@gmail.com or at the Spirit Lake Robotics Team’s Facebook page. They need to raise between $15,000 to $20,000 a year and appreciate the generosity of their corporate sponsors and from members of the community to help support the team’s yearly robotic challenges.
If you’d like to watch this year’s robot in action, Robotic Reveal Night will be at the Sami Center on April 17 at 6 p.m.
Corporate Sponsors
AGCO Corporation
Black Hills Energy
C & B Operations
Central Bank
FAST Ag Solutions
Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative
Polaris Indian Motorcycle
Rosenboom
Wells Fargo
The Spirit Lake Middle School FIRST Lego League was started in 2024 by middle school teacher Beau Dielschneider and is currently under the direction of K-12 Computer Science Instructor Kyle Zankowski.
Like high school, the challenge is new every year but undertaken through building a robot out of Legos. This year’s theme was submerged, and the Spirit Lake team built a robot that completed different tasks that were themed for oceans.
“Some things they created were relocating sharks to a safe refuge, rescuing divers, moving coral reef, pushing boats etc.,” Zankowski explained. “The challenge is different each year, but the challenge remains the same if you qualify for the state competition.”
The team of seven middle school students competed in Kingsley, finishing in seventh out of 13.
Zankwoski really enjoys how eager the students are to participate and bring their own unique ideas to the table. “They approach the challenge with the grandest of intentions and ideas, rather than being intimidated or shy. Because they do not know what to expect, their approach is to throw everything that is in their brain at the challenge,” he said. “Another fun part is guiding these ideas into something useful and appropriate. Although, I try not to do too much of the thinking for them!”
