The Thunder Robotics Team

In 2002, the Northwood and Hatton Science Club decided to try something new called “FIRST Robotics”. Little did they know how much the program would influence the students and galvanize the communities. For the initial 3 years, the towns had separate teams but in 2005, they merged together and the result has been great.

The 40 students from Aneta, Hatton and Northwood are a diverse group with members ranging in age from 14-18 years old. About 50% of the team is composed of females, some of the Robotic students are in sports while others learn best in a hands-on environment. They are learning engineering skills, electronics, agricultural tech, computer control systems and programming, mechanical, mathematical, pneumatic systems and much, much more. Adults in our community spend hundreds of volunteer hours of their time to helping the youth work on this project. Many of the adults are farmers with engineering backgrounds. The only way that a small North Dakota school like Hatton and Northwood can continue to participate in this program is to get substantial funding. (We are a tax-exempt organization)

The FIRST program not only involves the high school age students who actually build the machine, but the elementary students are given demonstrations and get to watch as the progress continues. The younger students learn that classroom skills can be used for fun and educational projects. The students have to learn many branches of academics including agricultural technology, physics, pneumatics, math, industrial technology, computer programming, art, organization and creative thinking when they build a robot. They plan meals, design team uniforms, work at their own pace and think on their feet. They work with adult volunteer mentors and are shown how to organize their time to best utilize themselves and others. Robotics is challenging their minds and giving them the incentive to try careers in which they can succeed.

From 2008_03_27 - Northwood / Hatton Thunder Robotics