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Two Robotics Teams at Eagleview Middle School (EMS) are making history. The Electric Eagles and MicroBots finished their season by competing in two international competitions.
The EMS Robotics Club started two years and has grown to include more than 40 students. When competing, the club is split up into three teams which allows each group of students to stretch their knowledge and learn from others.
In December 2022, the Electric Eagles and MicroBots broke a state-record at the Colorado First Lego Robotics Competition. The teams were named first and second place winners respectively in the state competition.
As a new team, Dr. Amanda Trimillos, EMS Language Arts teacher, and the club’s sponsor, knew her teams would succeed, but didn’t expect them to sweep the competition.
“The judges told us, this has never happened,” Trimillos explained. The historic win caught the attention of local television stations who featured the team’s success and their next steps.
Sixth-grader Sierra Winslow, told Colorado Springs KOAA News, “It's really exciting, I didn't think we would get this far but we did.”
The Electric Eagles stole the show with their expert robot-runs, coding skills, teamwork, and sportsmanship with other teams.
Matteo Trimillos, a seventh grader and member of Electric Eagles told FOX21 News, “I was really surprised, honestly, because we had a good robot-run, but not the best at State.”
The MicroBots impressed the judges with their innovation project. In addition to a team’s overall skill with robots, the competition required students to come up with a real-world solution. Their project directed robots to clean debris from solar panels, allowing for more energy consumption, a problem solar firms face regularly according to students.
Months before the competition, Nicole Trimillos, a seventh grader, explained, “we were interviewing solar farms and telling them about our innovation project. They said if we were to patent and run the idea, they would actually use it on our solar farm.”
In April, the Electric Eagles travelled to Houston, Texas for the World’s First Lego Competition. While the team didn’t place, Dr. Trimillos explained, the experience was invaluable.
“The teams were paired up with other students from Germany and even though they didn’t speak the same language, they had to work together on a robotic run,” she said.
In May, the Microbots travelled to California for the Western Edge Robotics Competition where they made a mark among 80 other teams from across the world, winning the Breakthrough Award. The students collaborated with international teams, including students from Switzerland, China and Puerto Rico.
While their season was supposed to end in December, Trimillos applauds both team’s stamina and dedication to extend their competition season into the final days of the school year.
