The Official Student News Site of Parkway West High

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The Official Student News Site of Parkway West High

Pathfinder

The Official Student News Site of Parkway West High

Pathfinder

Seniors Andrew Son (left), Tommy Eschbach (center) and Kaiden Kelley (right) laugh together while waiting for their robot, OverDriv6, to compete at the 2024 Missouri VEX State Championship. Although the competition was stiff, the trio managed to have a good time, content with their performance and teamwork. “We’re very good at recognizing small victories while in the face of adversity. If one of our subsystems failed or one of the parts of our robot broke, wed spend half an hour or so fixing that. The next match, even if we lost, wed still celebrate the fact that that adjustment we made ended up working and succeeding. Being able to celebrate minor victories was very good for our team chemistry and strength,” said Eschbach. (Photo by Mikalah Owens)

Graduating gears

Mikalah Owens, Staff Writer 8 hours ago

All four robotics teams competed at the 2024 Missouri VEX State Championship in Park Hills, Mo. While each individual team did well in competition — robotics team Blue Brains even earned a spot at the...

On March 2, West High’s Robotics team competed in the state competition, in which the B team placed ninth and the A team qualified for the world championship. Senior Lillian Dwyer is a notebooker and strategist in robotics. “Robotics is one of the many STEM opportunities offered at West High that is an enjoyable experience for anyone looking to go into engineering or science. I highly recommend joining it, because outside of school, it is fun to talk and hang out with people who are also excited about STEM and willing to dedicate time and energy to work on engineering projects,” Dwyer said. (Photos are courtesy of Mikalah Owens)

STEM mayhem

Audrey Ghosh, Opinion's Editor 3 days ago

STEM is a highly popular field, garnering interest from more than 75% of Gen Z students in the United States. Despite this large majority, only about a quarter are exposed to careers in STEM and real-world...

Peering through his glasses, Blue Brains Team Lead and senior Sawyer Ladd carefully examines his team’s robot in between contests. As team lead, Ladd seeks to encourage collaboration among his teammates. “We try [to] become more than just a group of people achieving successful robotics. On my team, Ive tried to make us more of a friend group than a robotics team. So thats improved our team chemistry — we just generally enjoy being around each other and that allows us to work together a little [better],” Ladd said.

Robotics teams compete at Ladue Tournament

Serena Liu, Editor-in-Chief February 8, 2024

For the first time this year, all four robotics teams competed under one roof at the Ladue VEX Robotics Competition Tournament. On Sunday, BreakPoint, MetalMinds, OverDriv6 and Blue Brains put their robots...

After being qualified for the VEX robotics world championship, members of the 5430 robotics team remain humble because of their drive to collaborate and express their ideas with each other. For sophomore and Blue Brains member Esther Young (center), being the newest addition of her team has allowed her to meet people that she shares interests with. It has also allowed her to meet some of the nicest people she has ever met. “Being on the team is very energizing. I know for a fact my team definitely wants to take home trophies, but we also wanted to be qualified for world. That basically just means performing super well — maybe an award,  but the experience is good too,” Young said.

Beyond the bots

Esta Kamau, Staff Writer April 17, 2023

Gearing up all four robots in preparation for the big day, members of the robotics program boarded a 5 a.m. bus March 5 and set off for Jefferson City, Mo. Each team — the Blue Brains (5430A), END GAM3...

Team Blue Brains (5430A: Seniors Kunal Addagarla, Jack Wild and Levi Ladd, juniors Rick Biswas and David Meisinger, sophomores Joseph Britt, Anushka Dharmasanam and Isaac Porter) display their newly built automaton.

Worlds VEX Robotics Competition: Robotics team assembles a successful weekend

Makinsey Drake, Staff Writer June 4, 2021

Robotics Teams Blue Brains and Memory Leak advanced to the 2021 VEX Robotics Competition at the end of this May. In a successful four days team Blue Brains, led by senior Levi Ladd, reached the World...

Sitting behind the A-team’s robot, junior and robotics team president Rick Biswas converses about the bot with Donaldson, who is behind the camera. Since joining the robotics team, Biswas decided to pursue a related career such as mechanical engineering or computer science. “. After I joined [the robotics team at West], I knew for sure that this was what I wanted to do,” Biswas said. “In general, everyone’s really supportive, especially Mr. Donaldson and the teams. Before I joined the robotics team, I was new here and I didn’t talk to many people. At robotics, I met new people, made new friends. They supported me to be [who] I am right now. ”

A winning streak: the robotics program’s recent successes and struggles

Tanvi Kulkarni, Staff Writer April 1, 2021

“We had made it our goal to win this award two years ago. I was actually assuming that they were going to say [the name of another] team that had won last year,” senior Ankita Gupta recalled. Gupta...

During Robotics Club, sophomores David Meisinger and Rick Biswas build a robot that they competed with in local competitions. Freshman Joseph Britt notes that cooperation was an important factor in the team qualifying for worlds. “Our team is mostly new people, so it is pretty exciting that we were able to work together,” Britt said. “I really like the environment there, and we have been spending a lot of our weekends working on the bot. We aren’t fighting over jobs or fighting over who gets to do what or [over] what the bot should do. We are all able to work together and execute it as a team.”

Robotics team qualifies for their first VRC World Championship

Zoe DeYoung, Staff Writer April 23, 2020

At the beginning of the school year, Blue Brains, one of the schools four robotics teams, set various goals, including making it to state. After not only qualifying for state but winning the competition,...

Experimenting with prototypes to create different types of motion, freshman Joseph Britt works on his automaton for engineering teacher Chris Donaldsons Intro to Engineering class. In the week leading up to spring break, Britt, along with junior Levi Ladd and sophomores Rick Biswas and David Meisinger, worked on their robotics project during class in anticipation of competing at the 2020 Vex Robotics World Championships, under the agreement that they would finish the class project over spring break. I offered to build [the automaton] because I had the parts to build it, and its important to keep busy. It can be fun to challenge yourself and do new things, Britt said. I am planning on learning some new skills, like text coding, that I might use next year in robotics. If you dont always have something interesting to do, the time can just kind of blend together and you can get bored.

Photo of the week – March 23

Brinda Ambal, Staff Writer March 27, 2020

After winning their competition, seniors Jason Yang and Ben Goff stand outside the venue, holding their trophy. The competition lasted for three days from Sept. 13 to Sept. 15. “This was an amazing experience, and I am glad we were able to compete,” Goff said. “I just like being able to come up with unique ideas and being able to design a robot and put them to test and see which ideas worked and which ones didn’t.”

Robotics and Soccer: how two students qualified for the world championship

Jacob Stanton, Staff Writer November 18, 2019

Hearts pounding, seniors Jason Yang and Ben Goff step up to compete during the National Robotics Competition in California. However, this was not just any robotics competition–it was a sports competition....

Attending a meeting after school, sophomore Kunal Addagarla makes adjustments to their robot. Twisted Metal was not able to qualify for the 2019 Missouri State VEX Championship, but they will be newcomers at the CREATE US Open Robotics Championship displaying teams from across the U.S. and China. “I would say teamwork is very important because we have different roles to fulfill, Addagarla said. Im one of the programmers for my team and I want to make sure that my code works [so I have to] test the robot occasionally. [Then] the rest of my team is building or researching various ways we can build a better robot.

Robotics team prepares for international tournament

Ridwan Oyebamiji, Staff Writer April 3, 2019

After not qualifying for the annual VEX Robotics Competition, senior and president Paden Davis and his team, Twisted Metal, are taking their talents to the CREATE US Open Robotics Championship April 4...

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