The Fisher School Robotics Team is coming off what has become the norm for the program, another successful season. After a first-place score in the “skills” portion of a recent competition in Valley City, North Dakota, the Arctic Knights recently learned that they have once again advanced to the state robotics competition. The state event will begin in St. Cloud on Thursday, March 3. The Polar Knights, Fisher School’s elementary robotics team, has also earned a trip to the state competition.
Members of the high school team, the “Arctic Nights,” include Ethan Kromschroeder, Kasen Stromstad, Jack Krause, Tristan Beckstrand and William Kromschroeder. Up-and-comers in elementary robotics, the “Polar Knights,” are Danica Scheving, Ashley Anderson, Connor Speldrich, Bennett Henderson, Joseph Bylund, Kalden Stromstad and Jorgen Scheving. The teams are coached/mentored by Mike Nielsen, Stacy Stromstad, Brandon Nielsen and John Bylund.
Fisher School’s Robotics Program was launched only 12 years ago, in 2010, but in that relatively short time, it has established a tradition of success; it’s a program to be reckoned with each year. As part of the program’s launch, Nielsen explains, the highest academic achievers from the freshmen to the senior class were hand-picked. In those early days, the team competed at Northland Community and Technical College and lacked any coaching or funding. The purchase of the inaugural robot kit was made possible by a grant. Nielsen was asked in the team’s second year to coach them part-time – his daughter was on the team – and was promptly informed by the students during his first meeting with them that they didn’t need a coach. But he stuck around to assist, anyway.
“That year, we competed at Northland with 21 other teams,” Nielsen recalls. “We placed 21st. It was a learning experience.”
Much has happened over the ensuing 11 years. In part due to Nielsen’s promotion of the program, the Fisher community purchased a field for the Fisher School team to work with their robots, and the trophies and plaques have been accumulating at Fisher School every year since. The team has earned an invite to the state event every year since its establishment in 2013, and it’s been invited to nationals in Council Bluffs, Iowa, five times, including this year, based on its performance in Valley City. In 2018, the Fisher Robotics Team advanced to the world competition in Louisville, Kentucky, that featured more than 700 teams from across the globe.
“So, yes, we are established and are well-known in the state of Minnesota,” Nielsen notes. “These teams are the largest achievers of awards and accomplishments at Fisher School.”
Every year, teams buy a basic robot kit, and each year’s “games” are developed so that a simple claw robot can accomplish a task and score points. Nielsen explains that such an approach makes it possible for everyone to compete, no matter their skill level. Abiding by size and parts guidelines, teams design and build their robots to perform best in that year’s particular “game.” As the season progresses, teams are constantly modifying and redesigning their robot, and the frequent tweaks, additions, subtractions, and re-strategizing undertaken by the Fisher Robotics team are apparent in their “Engineering Notebook,” which is frequently added to with each passing practice and evolves as a robotics journal, of sorts, in Google Drive.
Fisher School is a small school, so even though efforts are continuously underway to expand its industrial technology curriculum, Nielsen says that the robotics program fills an important role when it comes to providing students an outlet focusing on industrial arts and STEM. Spend some time in what would be considered a more traditional classroom setting with some of the team members, and then observe them at a typical robotics practice session, and it’s clear that they respond to hands-on work, perhaps more than they do to what might be considered traditional assignments and testing.
“That observation is spot-on,” Nielsen notes. He mentions a seventh-grader several years ago who joined the Fisher Robotics team. At that time, he was struggling on multiple levels and needed extra help to get his schoolwork finished. By the time he was a freshman, Nielsen recalls, he was keeping up in school on his own, and his leadership in the robotic skills competitions led the Fisher team to the world competition.
“The best thing he learned was confidence; prior to robotics, I don’t think he would have made it through school,” Nielsen continues, adding that the student graduated with a “B” average and is pursuing a career in firefighting. “(The Fisher Robotics program) has seen students who have joined the military become engineers, earned degrees in meteorology, and numerous other careers,” he says.
Team members agree that the hands-on approach and having tangible tasks and outcomes is a draw for them. Krause, an eighth-grader, has been involved in Fisher Robotics since elementary school. “I like building things, and it’s awesome that you can build something, program it, and then drive it,” he says. “You can buy a (remote-controlled) car, and it’s fun for a while, but our robot, you build it, and if it breaks, you rebuild it, and we’re always changing it.”
Stromstad, a sophomore, is drawn to the building aspect of robotics as well, but he especially enjoys the need to problem-solve every step of the way. “They don’t always work the way you thought they would, so you have to change it,” he explains. “I like driving it, too, so I get to see what I worked on actually work like it’s supposed to.”
“We’re all hands-on. That’s why we’re here,” eighth-grader Beckstrand says during a recent after-school practice session. “We get to actually do something, and then you can see what happens right in front of you.”
