Were famous..almost.

Great job guys! We made the front page of the paper!!

The Owatonna High School robotics team, Rebel Alliance, will be finishing its robot over the next few days as Tuesday’s deadline nears. Although its first competition isn’t until March 6 in Duluth, the competing teams must have their robot finished and “bagged” by Tuesday.

The team members will have to create a robot that can spin Frisbees through rectangular slots on a board. In addition, the robot will have to climb a pyramid and defend against other robots slinging Frisbees.
When asked to rate on a scale of 1 (not close) to 10 (close) how close the Rebel Alliance is to finishing its robot, senior captain Jarrod Neuharth said 9.5. Teammate Kurtis Pierret said 9.3. When finished, the team members hope the robot will be able to fling a Frisbee and climb a pyramid.
The team started in late September with roughly 40 students. Neuharth said 25 students are still consistently coming to each meeting. The members of the robotics team can earn a varsity letter for meeting certain criteria. Faculty advisor Val Rose said roughly 15 students will letter.
Ashton Huntsman was one of the students who signed up last fall, and said the team has met his expectations.
“It’s mostly how I thought it would be. We’re building robots and getting through it,” Huntsman said. “I didn’t expect the robot to be made out of wood, but other than that, the team is what I expected.”
The robot is partially made out of wood because it’s lightweight (105 pounds) and Pierret had access to some and knew how to work with it. A robot can’t weigh more than 120 pounds.
Nueharth said the hardest parts of building the robot were the wheels and the shooter.
“We worked on the shooting system for about four weeks, now we have a really nice urethane wheel that one of our mentors made at MRG in Faribault. A lot of it was just getting it to run like we wanted it to. We needed to fix things that weren’t working properly. The hardest design part was the shooter.”
Rebel Alliance will work on the robot on Friday before traveling to Eagan on Saturday and Sunday to practice. After two days of practice, the team will have its final build on Monday before locking the robot up on Tuesday.
While new to Owatonna High School, robotic competitions are not new in Minnesota. Several schools, including the four Rochester schools, have participated for years. Rochester team members have been working with Owatonna as it prepares for its first competition. - By DEREK SULLIVAN dsullivan@owatonna.com

Let the games continue! Keep up the good work!