Bloomfield Hills High School has too many activities to count, although there is overwhelming attention given to sports. From the countless trophies showcased on the walls to the morning announcement updates about the latest games, it is hard to escape the plethora of BHHS sports teams. But what about the students whose victories don’t come with roaring crowds? I’m talking about the Bionic Black Hawks, our school’s robotics team, whose success is overlooked.
A few weekends ago, the Bionic Black Hawks competed in their Week 1 competition in Milford and not only made it to the quarter-finals, but also won the Excellence in Engineering award–an outstanding accomplishment. The Bionic Black Hawks have won many awards over the years, including the Chairman’s Award in 2018 which made them a Hall of Fame team. Almost all BHHS extracurricular activities are recognized either on the daily announcements or talked about by other students. However, robotics is not. I have never heard the team’s accomplishments talked about by anyone other than the team members. This is unbelievable and upsetting because if all activities deserve the proper representation, why is robotics excluded?
During the main robotics season, students, parents, and mentors spend more than 22 hours a week at the shop working, building, and observing so we can have a functional and excelling robot for competitions. In this time, we have dealt with many setbacks, including spacing issues, clearance issues, and breaks. There were many situations where we had to completely take apart and rebuild parts of the robot, and we still got through it to make the robot the best it could be. I am on the assembly subteam, meaning that I am at the shop every day of the week except Friday and Sunday in order to complete our robot. Our team has been very successful this season and already has a lot of district points to give us a better chance at making it to states. With how much time and effort the team puts into the robot, wouldn’t you think robotics would be talked about all of the time? Well it’s not, and it’s disappointing.
I personally believe that all activities deserve to be talked about equally, so all programs are included. Maybe activities like robotics would be more popular if people had more information on it, and it didn’t have the stigma of being “nerdy”. If you’d like to learn more about robotics you should check out the team’s Instagram account @frc2834 or ask teachers or friends about it. There are a lot of people involved in FIRST programs that you might not know about.
