Club History

Since the founding of The Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (GSMST), the Robotics Club has held a center role as one of the most important extracurricular organizations because the group combines the school pillars of engineering and emerging technology. Two years of success have both featured world finalist teams, exponential membership growth, and motivation by student leaders.

2012-2013: The club, which has over 120 members, is fielding 5 VEX teams, 5 FTC Teams, FRC, BEST, and ROV. The school, now, also offers advanced robotics classes in addition to its original robotics courses, and several students are participating in robotics or engineering research projects for science and engineering fair. The club has also moved on to the local community and helping local schools start up VEX and FTC programs. The VEX program had five teams qualify for the World Championship in Anaheim, California.

For the 2009-2010 school year, the club expanded again. For the first time, GSMST offered in-school robotics classes for all three grade levels, and the club fielded a 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team and more teams in FTC and VEX. The expansion was a great success because the FRC team was named the Rookie All-Star Team at the Peachtree Regionals and was invited to the FIRST World Finals.

The 2007-2008 school year with only freshmen, the club fielded two FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) teams: FTC 675 "GSMST Alpha" and FTC 676 "GSMST Beta". Both teams had members with little or no experience in robotics design or competition, but, during Georgia Regional FTC Tournament, GSMST Beta – later dubbed the Gear Ratios – teamed up with two alliance partners and took the award for first place alliance. Becoming Georgia Regional Champions also allowed the team to travel to the FIRST World Finals down the street at the Georgia Dome where the team participated with other experienced teams from around the globe, and the GSMST club bestowed state champion rings upon the team at a special ceremony.

Epic success in only the inaugural year of the school paved the way for the second year of the club. With the addition of a new freshman class to supplement the rising sophomores, scores of new members lined up for the club. Consequently, the team launched eight initial teams (alpha, beta, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot, golf, hotel) of maximum ten people each to solve the 2008-2009 FTC game problem. Since the game platform that year switched from the VEX system to the Tetrix system, the teams spent the first half of the season prototyping with VEX parts. Mid-season, however, five Tetrix kits and additional parts arrived, and the club merged the eight teams into four competition teams: FTC 675 Alpha, 676 Beta, 2981 Charlie/Echo, and 2993 Delta/Foxtrot. All four team participated at both the Tennessee and Georgia Championships. At Tennessee, Alpha led the first place championship alliance while the alliance of Charlie placed second; Charlie also won the coveted Design Award, and Foxtrot earned the considerable Think Award. At Georgia, Charlie instead led the first place alliance, the alliance of team Alpha placed second, and other GSMST alliances made it to the quarter- and semi- finals. Additionally, at Georgia, Charlie won the Innovate award. Team Charlie winning the Georgia Championship qualified GSMST to attend the FIRST World Finals for the second year in a row; Charlie was the captain of the sixth place alliance. During the 2008-2009 year, GSMST Robotics also participated in BEST Robotics and VEX Robotics competitions.

Go RoboDragons!