Due to the lack of an advisor, the Wilcox robotics program entered the new competition season with many new challenges, such as being unable to access their room or be part of club fairs. Admin has implemented temporary fixes to make up for the absence of an advisor, but Wilcox senior Cleo Tran, captain of the varsity robotics team 8872 expressed that these solutions are inconsistent at times and a true resolution to the problem has yet to take place.
The now-retired advisor for the team, Ms. Hardy has played a crucial role in supporting the robotics program. “She started it from the very beginning,” Tran explained. For the past 11 years, Ms. Hardy has helped the team with the financial side of robotics, assisted in the club’s outreach, and used her background as an engineer to double-check robot designs.
The team is experiencing multiple setbacks due to the absence of an official advisor since Ms. Hardy’s retirement as a teacher in the district. For example, the robotics program currently is not allowed to participate in club fairs or put out messages in the morning announcements. Being unable to reach out to students through these methods caused many new members of the JV team to join late. Because of this, the team had to spend extra time making sure everyone was caught up on top of other activities. As a mentor to the JV team, Tran described that “out of seven days [the JV team is] on a call at eight p.m. four days of the week, and that sometimes lasts until midnight…Their dedication is impeccable.”
Because the robotics program is classified as an ASB club, a potential advisor would have to be a certificated employee of the school to be considered. Wilcox Admin and the robotics team have been reaching out to teachers and counselors about the position, but so far, “pretty much everyone we asked couldn’t do it,” Tran expressed. Furthermore, Tran thinks this could be because of the extremely high level of commitment that advising the program requires, saying that “many of them [teachers and counselors that have been reached out to] are just too busy.”
Aside from sponsoring the team, the new advisor would have to support the team during long work sessions, full-day competitions, and outreach events over the weekends. In addition to the time commitment, Wilcox Principal, Mr. Wall suggests that the lack of interest for the role could be for a few other reasons. “It could be maybe teachers just aren’t familiar with robotics so they don’t feel like they’d be able to support the program well,” he said. Mr. Wall also explained that a lot of teachers are already club advisors, which fulfills their responsibilities for adjunct duty. Therefore, this portion of teachers may not be compelled to take on another club like robotics. “I would say at least a third of the teachers already have clubs,” Mr. Wall added.
For the time being, the principal and vice principals are supposed to be supervising the teams while they work. Ms. Hardy is also there to support the team almost every day. However, these temporary solutions come with limitations. For example, without an advisor, the team isn’t allowed to have the key to the robotics room. Tran mentioned that “we were supposed to do a freshman introduction on Friday, no one showed up to unlock the room, so we just had to do an introduction outside.” There have been many other instances where the robotics teams have had to wait outside for someone from admin to unlock the door to their room.
Mr. Wall expressed that it is in the school’s interest to support the robotics program because, “it’s a program where so many students are involved in such a positive way.” He also explained that he is invested in highlighting the importance of the robotics program and students’ accomplishments, and admires the teamwork and positive energy of the community. Tran feels that the robotics program means a lot to them because it has helped them meet and build strong friendships and strengthen collaboration, public speaking, teaching, critical thinking, and problem solving capabilities, which are all transferable skills to both STEM fields and any other field of work.
Admin is looking to secure an advisor for the team as soon as possible, but since they have not found anyone for the role, it is unknown as to when this issue will be resolved. Nevertheless, Tran has faith that with their dedication, the team will reach their goals and continue to thrive this season, declaring, “I want to see ourselves back at the regionals competitions, I want to see ourselves succeeding there and going back to Houston.”
