Bixby Middle School Robotics Team To Compete In World Tournament In Dallas

The Bixby Middle School Robotics team is sending three squads to a robotics world tournament in Dallas in late April. While this is only the first year for competitive robotics at Bixby Middle School, these students have shown that they are some of the best around.

The program has already received numerous awards at the state level and hopes to perform well in the world tournament too.

"We’re one of those schools that’s received one of the most awards. We most recently won the excellency award at the state championship, which is the highest award you can receive as a team, so I’m really proud of all that they’ve accomplished," Traeton Dansby, Bixby Middle School's robotics teacher said.

While three teams are heading to Dallas and one team is ranked in the top seven percent in the world, it hasn't always been an easy ride for this program.

"We’ve spent hours and days working on these robots to go to these competitions, and we’ve had some low points and many high points but we’ve been able to get out of our slumps," Elijah Hanks, one of the robotics students, said.

The students in this program all share a common interest. They wanted to build and learn something new, even if they hadn't taken a robotics class before this year.

"I’ve always really wanted to be someone who makes things. So whenever I heard that there was a class, I considered taking it last year, but I decided I would wait until I was an eighth grader so I can potentially learn even more. I'm kind of glad I did since I got to be on the robotics team this year," Wyatt Widowski, a robotics student said.

Not only have these students learned so much to prepare for these competitions, they've also learned a lot of valuable skills that will help them outside of the classroom.

"They are learning skills here today that are going to take them into any career whether they become an engineer, whether they go into any other career they choose. Through robotics, they are learning stress management, time management, how to allocate resources, how to work together with different ideas," Dansby said.

Dansby also said that the program is also trying to help offset costs for the trip down to the world tournament in Dallas. The team has set up a GoFundMe to help with travel and lodging expenses ahead of the trip.