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Even during summer vacation, robotics at John Bapst does not rest. In fact, one newly formed team at the school, the five-member 2142A Rabid Robo Rabbits will be engineering and refining their robot design all summer.

And while the large school at 100 Broadway is mostly empty and quiet this time of year, that’s not the case in the robotics lab. Team captain Julianna Clark ’24 and her teammates, Declan Schilling ’24, Aiden Fenwick ’24, Hunter Smith ’24, and Alexander True ’24,  are dedicating their precious summer months to making a big impact in the robotics community, not just in the state competitions, but in national and international ones, as well.

THEIR GOAL: successfully competing at The Vex Robotics Mall of America Signature Event August 4-5, 2023, in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Billed as “the greatest two minutes in competitive robotics,” the competition features 100 top-notch teams from all over the United States. And as the first signature event of the 2023-2024 VEX Robotics Competition Season, this tournament is a magnet for the most skilled and talented VEX Robotics teams in the nation.

The team at John Bapst wants to be ready.

Competition is nothing new to the robotics teams at John Bapst. All five members of Rapid Robo Rabbits competed in the Maine state championship for the 2022-2023 season and team captain Clark reached the VEX Robotics World Championship for the 2021-2022 season. But this competition seems different.

Now is the time to take her team to even bigger heights, Clark says.

“Overall, Bapst has remained very competitive in the state and competitive nationally in the past. With Covid, things slowed down, but this year we’d like to pick things back up. Our biggest goal this year is not just to make it to worlds, but make it to the ‘dome’ at worlds. The ‘dome’ has never been reached by a team from Maine, and it is where all the teams who’ve made it past their division go to compete in the finals,” Clark states.

So, as the walls at John Bapst are being cleaned and painted, floors polished, and classrooms slowly readied for the fall, the whir of robots and the excited chatter of teammates echo down nearly empty hallways.

At John Bapst, it’s apparent that robots, and their student designers, never rest.

The John Bapst community is proud of our robotics teams, and the dedication and hard work displayed by the students and instructor, Mr. Mike Murphy, Engineering and Technology Department Chair. But all this takes personal and financial commitment. If you’d like to support robotics at John Bapst, please consider a gift at www.johnbapst.org/give/we_are_back and specify “Robotics” in the “Gift Options” category on the online giving sheet. Thank you.