The Project 691 Robotics Team in the William S. Hart Union High School District has continued to challenge and build the skills of their team despite the obstacles presented to them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Project 691 Robotics Team is a robotics team that encompasses high school students from all over the Santa Clarita Valley. The program gives students opportunities to experience real-world engineering through competitive robotics with annual competitions, team officials said.
With the unpredictable shakeup of COVID-19, Project 691 has had to make some necessary adjustments.
“We’re on a wild ride; it’s been a vast change,” said Connor Miller, a student at Academy of the Canyons who has been a part of the 691 team since his freshman year. “It’s a completely different forte now. I think students who return to in-person robotics after this virtual year are going to be shell-shocked.”
Founded in 1995 by local Santa Clarita residents, Project 691 is run by an all-volunteer staff. The team comprises multiple mentors and roughly 30 students, with a current focus on the upcoming virtual competition ‘Gamechangers’, which is set to commence mid-May.
In previous years, the competitions have involved the creation of robots that are able to move, stack crates, hang gears, or pass an exercise ball from robot to robot, according to 691 coach and team mentor Aaron Dolgin.
To accommodate with the lack of in-person training and competitions due to COVID-19 precautions, three new tiers of challenges have been made available to teammates whether they have access to build a robot this time around or not.
The tiers for their upcoming competition, sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and Lucasfilm, a second-year sponsor, include three options with all different requirements: Game Design, Infinite Recharge, and Innovation.
Each tier has a completely different end goal, and 691 students have free range to choose which challenge their group wishes to pursue.
The new competition options are implemented to allow robotics teams the ability to still compete without the traditional in-person resources available during a normal semester. Each team, which consists of roughly seven or eight high school students from all over the Santa Clarita Valley, has two team mentors.
Each project group has had to design and communicate with team members over not only Zoom but Slack, a similar software, as well, in order to accomplish their team’s goal in a mere 6-week limit.
All students in Project 691 are currently preparing to pitch their robots, designs, or innovative technological solutions in an interview process over the next coming weeks to continue onto the next round of “Gamechangers.” Each group of students has not only created their own product but also practiced pitching it to judges with FIRST as well.
“What sets us apart from others is our ability to truly be a student-driven team. Our students decide what different approaches we use to tackle a project, what competitions we choose to accept, as well as leading our weekly meetings,” said Dolgin. “The mentors in 691 are simply there to facilitate the teams and provide effective input to better the students.”
One former Project 961 student called competing in their annual challenge, “the Olympics of the mind.”
On the topic of the impact for Santa Clarita locals, Peter Onesti, another mentor at 691, stated that “the energy and excitement the participating team members receive at a competition is synonymous with that of a school dance or basketball game.”
“We’re teaching these kids so many capabilities that just aren’t around anymore,” said Onesti. “Hands-on machine shops in high school are gone and opportunities like this teach the next generation about important things like advanced modeling and 3D printing.”
Project 691 is currently sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering and Northrup-Grumman, the latter thanks to Dolgin. International sponsors for FIRST include Department of Defense STEM Sponsors, NASA, Apple, and Boston Scientific.
High school students involved with FIRST and Project 691 have gone on to attend prestigious universities such as CalTech, UCLA, and Ivy League schools.
For more information on the local Santa Clarita robotics team, visit their website here.
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