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...
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...
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...
Esta Kamau, Features/Humans of West Editor
• 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...
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...
“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...
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,...
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....
![“This school year, I'm looking forward to really settling into West, because last year I was a freshman getting used to the environment, and now that I [am aware of] my surroundings, I know the opportunities that West provides me. I feel like getting more involved than I was last year and it's going to be [a] fun [experience] for me. [This year I am going to] join the diplomacy club and the spanish club. I'm excited to meet new people, try new things and see what those clubs are about. I [might] join volleyball again, because I had a lot of fun doing [it] last year. I'm also on the robotics team at West and I'm super excited, because last year I didn't have any past experience in robotics, but now I know the lay of the land and what I'm doing. [This year] I think my personal growth is my [biggest] motivator. I've always wanted to be a better person and just continue growing [in] this journey of self improvement and [through] joining these clubs. Discovering myself in high school really [helped to] push me, and that has been my motivator for a long time. I love the community here, [and] I love all the opportunities that the school has given me.”- Adam Thomas, 10](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/WunschA_ThomasA1-Anna-Wunsch-1200x800.jpg)
![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, I've tried to make us more of a friend group than a robotics team. So that's improved our team chemistry — we just generally enjoy being around each other and that allows us to work together a little [better],” Ladd said.](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/DSC_0021-1-1200x801.jpg)
![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. ”](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/5430A_Closeup-4-900x675.jpg)
![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.”](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/image-4-900x600.png)
![Experimenting with prototypes to create different types of motion, freshman Joseph Britt works on his automaton for engineering teacher Chris Donaldson's 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 it's 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 don't always have something interesting to do, the time can just kind of blend together and you can get bored."](https://pwestpathfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_5823-900x675.jpg)
