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Scott Central robotics program to hold fundraiser Saturday
SIKESTON — Scott County Central High School’s robotics program will host its largest fundraiser Saturday with all proceeds being used for the 2021-2022 season.
Cristy Crites, high school robotics coach/sponsor, said she writes for a $1,000-grant each year; however, it’s a $5,000-program to operate.
Students earn the remaining $4,000 through fundraising efforts like the Sixth Annual Car Show set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the school. Registration is from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday with trophies, and awards to be handed out at 2 p.m.
Asher Britt, a sophomore and robotics program member at Scott County Central High School, noted this is the second year the car show will award first through third place trophies for each class: car, truck, motorcycle, foreign and rat-rod. A trophy will be awarded for teach class: farthest distance; most creative; oldest; work in progress; and people’s choice.
For the first time, the robotics program will also host an Arts, Crafts and Vendor Fair, also from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, in the high school gym. About 25 vendors have secured spots and will sell items ranging from jewelry, fabric and quilts to dolls, wooden signs, florals and other speciality items.
“It’s really important just to let everyone know that we have a robotics program,” Britt said. “This school is a big basketball school. This (fundraiser on Saturday) is considered outreach, and that is one of the main things that we talk to the judges about when we compete. We talk to them about how we went out into the community and told about us and gave back. This (fundraiser on Saturday) is one of our main events that we talk about with judges.”
The students also attend other local car shows to share about their program.
The robotics district competition, which is called the qualifier, takes place is in January, Britt said. If teams advance, they have about two months to prepare for the state competition, he said.
“Not to mention, we don’t get a lot of school sponsorships so this (fundraiser on Saturday) is how we make a lot of our money to buy parts and everything else for our robots,” said senior and robotics program member Elizabeth Stone.
Crites implemented the robotics program in the 2016-2017 school year with students building and coding the district’s first robot. Each year, they’ve built and added parts to the robot, Hugo, who also retired last year.
Now SCC’s program has two robots being built and coded as two teams who will compete for Scott County Central in the 2021-2022 season.
Britt is the captain of Team 18100 comprised of himself and freshman Kyle Nixon. Stone is on Team 11965 with senior Kenzie Monroe, who is also the team captain.
The students said they have a daily classroom period to work on their robots, and they also stay after school once a week to work on them. As it gets closer to qualifier or competition, they will work more, they said.
If there were no robotics program in place at Scott County Central, Stone said she’d be very upset.
“The only reason we have it is because our art teacher decided to step up and be the robotics teacher. Nobody else wanted to be the robotics teacher,” Stone said.
“She’s amazing,” Britt said of Crites, who is also the art teacher.
The students nodded in agreement.
“She works really hard to make sure we get everything we can. She’s always writing grants and giving up family time,” Stone said.
The students said the program allows them to meet other people and the competitions have a great environment.
Without the program, the students said they wouldn’t have gained the experience they have now.
“I know, for myself, I’ve already learned how to code and build and engineer, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to get that until maybe going to a college that offered it,” Britt said.