Columbia robotics team heads to world championship in Houston – KOMU 8

COLUMBIA Columbias robotics team, Army Ants Team 3792, is headed to the world championship in Houston because of their work toward diversity and inclusion.

The FIRST Championship is in Houston and set for April 20-23.

The team qualified by winning the Chairman's award in St. Louis, which celebrates outreach inclusive efforts. The captain, Luke Sabath, joined through outreach programs.

We want to make sure everybody gets the opportunity to do what we are doing, Sabath said. We want to make it accessible to everybody."

Sabath said it is rewarding being able to expose kids to robotics.

We work with underserved communities, Sabath said. We are the ones allowing them to develop these skills to help them in the future with STEM.

The team consists of 40 students from local high schools and homeschool. According to the teams website, the team is 47% students of color and 43% female and non-binary identifying students. All 40 team members can attend the event.

We allow everyone from the team to come because it is an awesome experience, Sabath said.

To tackle the financial aspect and make it more accessible for the team members, the team started a GoFundMe page.

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Some students will have classes or AP Tests, so they will not be able to come. But, for the ones that can, we want them to, Sabath said.

Zihao Zhou is vice captain and on the drive team where he operates the robot. Zhou said there are many benefits to having such a diverse team.

We try to make it everyone in the district can access the opportunity especially those who have traditionally felt that they are not as welcome in these environments, Zhou said.

Mentors help guide the students, but it is rare that mentors will be holding the robots.

Were able to get everything working without the help of professionals and improve based on what we did all by ourselves, Zhou said.

The Army Ants qualified for the competition the last four years, but due to COVID, the team was not able to attend in 2020 or 2021. Sabath said it feels good to be back.

In 2021, the full season was almost all online Sabath said. When we walked back into St. Louis, it was like Yes were back, we made it."

The teams robot created this year can shoot balls into a hoop and climb a wooden hanger.

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Columbia robotics team heads to world championship in Houston - KOMU 8