Juniors Adam Li and Bryce Cavey of Freedom Hs are members, or better yet founders, of the FTC (First Tech Challenge) robotics team “Le Pamplemousse,” a French word meaning grapefruit. The name is just a formality, albeit one that carries a deal of humor.

But how does this club come to be? How does it function while there are other extracurriculars such as the aforementioned athletics?

“I was just like, you know, I want a robotics team at freedom … I’m just going to try to get a robotics team at Freedom,” Li said.

And that is how the team came to be, with students rallying around the idea. The team brings together students from different backgrounds, from hobby builders to newcomers.

“What inspired me most to join robotics was essentially my lack of engineering experience,” said fellow member Sarrah Hussain.

But the key is teamwork, club adviser Alexandra Roscher points out that the club models the real world in that there is more cooperation than would be seen in sports.

“It’s really amazing to be see and be a part of finding unique solutions to new problems,” said member Emily Rowan.

With the team assembled, it was time to get to work. But how can high school students build a robot? According the Li and Cavey, it involves fundraising, talking to companies, and donations, all done as a group of students with a common goal.

“They are completely self-sufficient,” Roscher said.

With parts gathered and with a plan and the important design notebook, Le Pamplemousse got to work to competition preparation, involving coding and manufacturing.

“We all have our little thing we like doing … We fell in to what we wanted to do,” Cavey said.

Both Li and Cavey explained that the team’s robot would be placed into an arena of sorts. This arena includes various tasks to complete such as moving items or hanging off of ledges, all while being controlled by a club member for two minutes along with a thirty second autonomous period.

“It was up to us to prove ourselves,” Cavey said.

Easier said than done, to say the least. Both Cavey and Li recall the journey to get to the competition, including something that happened right before when they were supposed to present.

“For 45 minutes, the robot was just not working,” Li said.

But, with some modifications, one of them involving duct tape, the robot was ready to compete. Upon their completion of the competition, the newly-founded team was awarded with the best rookie team award, and placed among the top 10 teams. This was a terrific showing for a new team with something to prove.

“While being a part of a rookie FTC team certainly has a learning curve for us all, working with such a motivated team is something I will never forget,” said member Ryan Bailis.

Spectators can come see Le Pamplemousse compete at Emmaus HS Feb. 13, and hopefully qualify for the state competition.