In the U-High Robotics Club’s first months of existence, its two teams, We Byte and Fresh Steel, have shown a steady improvement in results at their meets.

Sophomore Nicholas Pietraszek and middle school science teacher Darren Fuller formed the club at the beginning of the school year. Meetings focus on preparing for meets. This includes building and engineering specific parts, wiring components and programming their robots.

Leading up to their first meets on Nov. 17, the teams mainly worked from their instruction manual. Many members had very little experience in robotics and struggled to build the robots.

“By the first meet, we were convinced that we were the rookiest of rookies… I wasn’t so sure how we were going to do,” Nicholas, the club’s president, said.

The teams performed better than they expected, with We Byte finishing 4th, and Fresh Steel finishing 12th. These results gave members a confidence boost, which caused them to be more experimental and creative with their robot building. This led to continued improvement as We Byte finished fifth and Fresh Steel third at the second meet on Dec. 15. Despite having little time to prepare due to winter break, We Byte finished second and Fresh Steel finished third at a  Jan. 12 meet.

Nicholas credits his teams’ hard work as the key to their improvement.

“Both teams are really hard working,” he said. “They brought tons of energy, and they know how to handle themselves. I didn’t have to micromanage people.”

The Robotics Club welcomes new members and meets Thursdays during lunch and after school in room S221 in Blaine Hall. The teams will compete at the regional level Feb. 2 and hope to make it to the state competition.