Gar/Pal robotics team starts new season

The Garfield/Palouse Vikotics team “build team” poses at a work session Monday. The group is the engineering subset of the team, which is working to design, build and test their robot by the Feb. 21 deadline. Competition begins the first week of March. At front, from left to right: Freshman Joey Link, Junior Kristian Gibler, junior Cortney Finch. Back row, left to right: Senior Braden Schaeffer, senior Josh Heite, freshman Danielle Reeve, junior Willy Mayhan and freshman Isaac Bailey.

The 2017 Vikotics team in November at a “Robot Rewind” event in Spokane.

The Vikotics are back for 2017. The second year of the Garfield/Palouse F.I.R.S.T. Robotics (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) team began Jan. 7, with 17 students participating, led by ag teacher Mark Sawyer and eight mentors – four more than last year.

The high school group now closes in on building its first prototype, leading to the Feb. 21 deadline to stop building. The first competition is March 3-4 in Spokane Valley, for a team that finished last year at the world championships in St. Louis.

“We had a great foundation to build upon,” said Sawyer of the new season.

The team meets four days per week, moving toward six now with weekend sessions at the ag shop and in Sawyer's classroom. On Saturdays, they test drive their work in the gym.

The theme for 2017 F.I.R.S.T. competition is “Steamworks,” for a game in which robots will capture wiffle-balls and place them in a steam machine for points. The machines will also need to climb a rope at the end of each game.

The local team is part of F.I.R.S.T.'s Pacific Northwest district, consisting of more than 160 teams from Washington, Oregon and Alaska.