Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, in partnership with Vermont Public.
This story was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a text version of the story below.
THETFORD — Thetford Academy’s gym looked more like a robotics lab than a basketball court one Saturday last month, as dozens of teens and pre-teens arrived with robots in tow for the school’s second annual Haunted Harvest VEX Robotics Tournament.
By 8 a.m., students were already huddled over their robots, making last-minute adjustments before competition began.
Leif LaWhite, Thetford Academy's head robotics coach, said students had come to Thetford from all across Vermont and New Hampshire to "pit their robots against each other."
This event is a regional VEX Robotics tournament. VEX is one of the largest educational robotics programs in the world, and each year it releases a new challenge for student robotics teams to tackle.
This year's challenge is to design, build and program a robot that can pick up balls and drop them into tubes made out of PVC pipes. Teams score points for how well they complete the challenge, as well as the design of their robot.
Duncan MacPhee is a student on one of Thetford Academy's eight robotics teams. He's spent months working on his robot, and it shows.
“We came extremely close to getting the world record for highest-scoring match," Duncan said. "We were off by seven points."
Not bad for Thetford Academy, a rural school with only about 300 students.
In recent years, Thetford Academy has become a regional robotics powerhouse, regularly sending teams to the VEX World Championship.
But it hasn’t always been this way.
Thetford Academy's robotics program started in 2011 when then-student Jonathan Leitschuh got hooked on robotics after a unit in his physics class.
He and his physics teacher, Marc Chabot, decided they wanted to try building robots for competition.
"And so we got a grant from the Thetford Academy Alumni Association for about $2,000 to pay for a bunch of parts," Leitschuh said. "And we went to our first robotics competition in Leominster, Massachusetts. And we came in drop-dead last."
Leitschuh says that early loss fired them up.
He started recruiting his classmates to join the fledgling robotics team. And Marc Chabot, the physics teacher, started fundraising. He had been paying for additional supplies out of pocket.
“We had nothing, and there was no budget for it," Chabot said. "Sometimes I'd be, like, $3,000 in the hole."
The team started growing. And that’s when the community stepped in.
“We got armies of volunteers of parents to come in and be with [the students] on the weekends," Chabot said. "And then they wanted to spend their entire holiday break building robots."
Fifteen years later, the commitment and passion toward Thetford Academy robotics has only grown. Students (and parents) spend late nights in the robotics room, working on improving their robots.
Connor Kutter-Walker is another Thetford Academy student and Duncan McPhee’s teammate.
"This year alone, I've spent 600 hours in the robotics room," Connor said.
Connor and Duncan's hard work has paid off. The pair have now qualified for the VEX World Championship five times.
"This is my passion, and that's why we've been super successful," Duncan said. "Me and Connor have decided this is what we want to do. This is what we enjoy."
Jonathan Crossett is another coach of the Thetford Academy robotics teams. He says he’s seen the impact of the program on his own kids.
“My oldest son started [with the robotics program] when he was in eighth grade. He is an engineer today because of his time in robotics," Crossett said.
Jonathan Leitschuh, the student who started it all, is also an engineer now. He says, if engineering or computer science interests you, chase it.
“If you’ve got a passion for it, just go explore this stuff," he said.
Connor and Duncan’s team, "String Theory," ended up winning the tournament. The win qualifies them for yet another VEX World Championship. They'll head to St. Louis, Missouri in April to compete.
Dylan Moody A'ness grew up in Thetford, and is a graduate of Thetford Academy.
