Surrounded by the sounds of power tools and heavy machinery, a small group gathered at the back of Prep’s Tomorrow Labs is crowded around the shell of a 100 pound steel robot.

This core team will be responsible for designing, constructing, and coding this behemoth of a machine in only one month.

These students are participating in the First Robotics Competition, (F.R.C.).
F.R.C. is a national robotics competition that draws major figures in engineering from all over the country. Participants are given their objective only one month before competition begins. This makes time a huge factor in the design process.

“We’ve been putting in a lot of hours,” team member Cian Weekly said. “We’ve only got a month so we have to make the most of it.”

This is Creighton Prep’s first year competing in F.R.C. , making it only the third school in Nebraska, along with Bennington High School, and Aurora High School, to contend in this prestigious event.

“[F.R.C.] is the most complex robotics Prep has ever done,” Weekly said. “Very few high schools get the opportunity to compete, but we’re able to because of the new lab.”

Serving as the team’s “home base” Tomorrow Labs has certainly widened the group’s manufacturing capacity. With new tools like the laser cutter and wood mill at their disposal, the team can spend less time waiting for parts, and more time constructing.

“The new equipment allows us to custom fabricate parts for both our robot, and the custom field we are constructing” Weekly said.

The team’s first opportunity to see their robot in action will be on March 17th in Kansas City. If all goes well, they will progress to the next week of competition. Each week they progress, their competition will get more and more stiff. Even in this situation, the team is optimistic about their chances.

“We try to be reasonable because this is our first year participating in FRC”, said Weekly. “We have high hopes for Kansas City.”