Mr. Lombardi’s Robotics Teams Are Set Up to Have the Best Year Ever!

Viewpoint Middle School Robotics received a 100% increase in sign-ups for the 2024-2025 year. Veteran robotics teacher, Mr. Lombardi, aka Mr. Lamborghini, had his hands full juggling all the new applicants. He announced, “Not only did we have a 100% increase in sign-ups this year, but we reached capacity in record time. Last year it took almost a week before we started a waitlist, this year it was only a few hours.” With all this new interest in robotics, let’s take a closer look at this popular middle school club.

Every year, students build a robot specific for the year’s new competition, which keeps the building fresh, exciting, and nerve racking. This year, the goal of the game is to work with a fellow team to effectively pass balls back and forth between robots and to shoot the balls into four goal posts. It’s loud in the robotics classroom, with people discussing how they should build their machines, snapping on pieces to their bots, and tipping over bins in their rush to find the right piece. Eighth grader Johnny Robinson has been a robotics club member since 6th grade. He is known for collecting every color connector pin in the classroom, creating both the most colorful robots and the most unusual names for them. Last year, Johnny’s team dubbed their robot “The Croatian Crawler”, and this year they’ve decided to go with “The Danish Destroyers”. The best team’s robots are simple, efficient, and hard to break. For robotics novices, Mr. Lombardi recommends building a robot using instructions that can be found at vexrobotics.com. However, Leia Zucker-Petterson, an 8th grade robotics student, claims that, “Everyone thinks of the stuff you do, so you need to think outside of the box”. Dragon Chang, a 7th grade robotics student, agrees with Leia and chimes in “We’re having an idea of a six foot robot”. At any rate, it’s clear that all the robotics students love the challenge and creativity of building.

This year, Viewpoint Robotics has sixteen teams, with half of those teams comprising of new 6th graders. 6th grade robotics student, Declan Kim, said he joined robotics, “Because… it’s kinda the future.” Mr. Lombardi agrees, “Robots used to be science fiction, but are very much becoming a reality in the modern world. Advances in technology like AI are also helping to push robotics into everyday life”. The future is very much on the minds of these new developing engineers. The new game mode this year focuses more on precision and teamwork compared to last year’s game mode where one robot could do almost all the work. The dependency on teamwork this year creates a very tight-knit community. Weston Vacca, a 7th grade robotics student says, “People are like so helpful… and they help you out when you need help.” To reach for the future, people need to work with each other to push a project farther along. Rinya Dilg, an 8th grade robotics student, sums it up, “[Robotics is] engineering and programming along with classmates to discover new ideas and concepts.” 

It’s clear that robotics is a bridge between different fields and it is more creative than people might think. Mr. Lombardi says that, “[His favorite thing about robotics] is the creativity involved in coming up with a design and bringing that idea into the physical world. Robotics exists at the intersection of technology, engineering, and science, but I think the artistry and creativity of robotics is often overlooked. I love watching students bring their ideas to life.” The teams will have the chance to showcase their bots at the upcoming scrimmage which will be sometime between Thanksgiving and Winter Break. In addition, there will be competitions in January and February. With all the scrimmages and competitions, Mr. Lombardi might be one of the busiest teachers at Viewpoint. And maybe that’s why he wishes he had a robot maid in his house. Meanwhile, the students are excited and prepared to make this the best robotics year ever.