Impact Award 2024

Team 5271: Open Circuits strives to bring a positive impact to our team, our school, and our wider community in the Twin Cities area. We aspire to provide valuable leadership opportunities for all members of our team, be an active member of our community, and foster inclusion, interest, and equity within STEM. However, it hasn’t always been easy. 

From winning a Rookie Award in 2014 to losing our coach and failing to go to any competitions by 2018, Open Circuits had suffered a significant downturn in just a few years. Despite our school’s successful Lego League program, in the years 2019 and 2020 there wasn’t a high school robotics team at our school, Open World Learning. 

Though our team faced significant struggles, you wouldn’t know it by looking at the current team. At practices, the air is filled with discussions of limelight sensors, exploring new drivetrains, and what fundraiser to do next. The team is full of life and ambition, now on its second year of going to two regional competitions. 

So, how did our team come back from the brink? 

It all started during the 2020 season, when several students from the graduating class of 2023 had a class with our current head coach, Megan Hall. They’d been in our school’s Lego League program, and wanted to join a high school robotics team. Megan didn’t know much of anything about robotics, but nevertheless, when she saw students interested in STEM, she signed up to coach the team. 

This set a precedent for the reborn Open Circuits. We pride ourselves on being inclusive and accessible, open and welcoming to anyone interested in robotics, regardless of skill level or personal identity. Coach Megan has always been a coach who prioritizes student leadership. These two elements ended up fostering an environment perfectly suited for growing leaders. 

The past three years have showcased our regrowth. Three years ago was our first time going back to competition after the team fell apart. Though it didn’t go perfectly, it did allow the team to reestablish ourselves, and everyone was glad to be back in 2022. 

During the 2023 season, the team was determined to hit the ground running in the pre-season. Between mentoring one of our school’s Lego League teams, doing inventory, and creating the business end of the team, we were busier than ever before. That season, we went to two regional competitions, and wrapped up the season satisfied with how we’d improved, but hungry for more. 

That season, a group of sophomore girls and one non-binary teammate had also built a shadowbot to practice driving with. Two of them now lead the build team, and another leads the drive team. 

Female and non-binary leadership like that isn’t unusual for our team. In fact, it’s a norm. This year’s student leadership is reflective of the gender diversity of our team, with all of our official student leaders being either female or non-binary. The team as a whole is only around 50% male. Two notable examples of female leadership are the leaders of the business team and the 3-D team. 

Our business team was created last season when a then-freshman girl noticed that the team wasn’t raising much money and needed to improve when it came to fundraising. Since then, it has become a multifaceted group, running thriving social media accounts, organizing fundraisers both in and out of school, and coordinating the team’s efforts to reach the community. It’s even well on the way to having a booster club with 510c3 certification.

Our other new sub team, created just this year, was our 3D Printing team, which has already built multiple 3D printers for the team to use. This sub team consists of both new members to the team, and returning members who were hoping to try something new. When choosing sub team captains during our pre-season, a freshman girl was determined as best fit to lead the 3D printing sub team.

The rather unconventional and heavily female team leadership has only made our team stronger. It’s both a wonderful opportunity and something that can change someone’s perspective on who can be a leader. We believe that our leadership can positively influence students of every gender by showing them a fair and meritocratic model. 

We also believe in starting this impact early. The Open Circuits mentor our school’s Lego League teams. Our aim is to spark a passion for robotics within those teams, which has proven to be a success. Many Lego League team members choose to continue participating in robotics by joining the Open Circuits in this school, and those members often become leaders on the robotics team. 

In previous years, we’ve shared a workspace with one of the Lego League teams, which made it easy to facilitate mentorship that year, but it wasn’t the case this year. That didn’t stop us, as team members continued to assist FLL teams, and Lego League eighth graders visited us during practice to see what they might want to do next year. 

Some team members even volunteered at a regional FLL tournament, one as a teacher’s assistant for a Lego League class at our school. The other two showed Lego League teams to their judging areas, and built connections with a lot of different teams. Overall, it was a fulfilling experience, and was full circle for some of them. 

We make an effort to participate in out-of-school outreach events as well. We recently took part in Droid December at the Bakken Museum, as well as a robotics demonstration at the Minnesota State Fair. At the Bakken, we aimed to foster an interest in STEM among children and share our message of inclusion and equity within robotics. At the State Fair, we won an award in the tenth grade electrical category, but also gained lots of valuable advice from other teams participating in the event. We believe that our outreach makes us a stronger team because of the lessons we learn from others in our community. 

The community our team has built has been incredible for all involved. One example, on a technical level, is our programming sub team. When the team was restarted, no one on the sub team knew anything about programming a robot. Now, after three seasons of experience, they’re programming limelight and ultrasonic sensors, and have created code for multiple types of drivetrains. That has been a huge leap for our team, and one of many. 

On a human level, the impact is unquantifiable. You can see it in the gritty determination the team keeps alive even throughout the long practices at the beginning of the season, despite multiple small crises. You can see it in the satisfaction on the programmers’ faces after figuring out a difficult part of the autonomous program. Most of all, you can see it on the team’s eager faces during the opening circle as we plan where we’re going next. The Open Circuits aim to provide fertile ground for leaders to grow, and that mission’s impact has already taken root in our team.