Making a Run at Cow Town

Going into seventh grade, my sister made the choice to join Breakaway 3937, our school’s robotics team. At the time, I was shocked that she would be quitting basketball in order to build a robot, whatever that meant.

By mid-September, I was dragged by my parents to Kansas City, MO, to go to one of her competitions. I remember grumbling and complaining until I stepped into Lee Summit High School, the location of the Cow Town ThrowDown, an off season FIRST Robotics event that draws some of the best teams in the country. I was astonished by what I was experiencing. The members of Breakaway were people only a couple of years older than me, and they were accomplishing so much. The robotics team quickly became my hero.

Now that I'm a senior, this was my last trip to Lee Summit. Going to Cow Town for my last time was sad, but I was also overjoyed about how much our team has grown from the 2013 off season event. As far as the competition goes, we remained undefeated in qualifications—the first time for our team at this event. Although we had a good chance to win the elimination round with our alliance partners, things didn't turn out the way we had hoped. Thankfully, we have some up and coming leaders who remain positive and encouraging. They are setting a great example for the rest of the team to stay positive, even when we lose. No matter what happens, we should not let the competition get in the way of our love for each other. In the wise words of one of our freshman, Camryn Traughber (who most likely does not remember saying this years ago), “We lost a few. Oh well, let’s cut our losses and keep moving.”

The 2018 off-season stretch is in the books, and we are looking forward to seeing what Deep Space will look like. In the meantime, our Marketing and Chairmans team of 7 women, who really care about robotics and STEM, will continue to reach out to our local community and schools to learn more about FIRST and to be inspired by the life lessons we can learn from a robot.

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