Revere’s first robotics team is preparing for its upcoming competition by educating its members on robot building as well as leadership skills.

Joseph Silvestri teaches technology at Revere High School and has taken on the role of running the robotics club. He is preparing the team with training sessions on robot building as well as teaching them leadership skills. He hopes that the students will soon take over.

“It is really a student led team. I am just there to guide them,” Silvestri said.

The robotics club is divided into subgroups of management. There is a building team, a programming team, an electrical team and a marketing team.

“Because it’s our first year, we received a grant to cover the costs, but in the future we will have to do all of our own funding,” Silvestri said.

Actually building the robot does not take place until January when there is a live online video that will announce the type of robot that the team will have to construct. They will get six weeks to prepare their robot for competition.

“Once the robot type is announced, we will have a big brainstorming session. For the next six weeks, we will be meeting from 2:45 to 6:00 P.M. afterschool Monday through Friday, and we will meet on Saturdays as well,” Silvestri said.

The task that the robot will have to complete could be anything. Silvestri noted that the last year’s challenge was to build a robot that threw Frisbees through goals.

The robot building process consists of brainstorming, sketching designs, constructing mechanical drawings and getting the needed tools.

The team co-captains senior Erik Godard and junior Nathan Peterman have some experience in the skills that are involved in the building process.

Godard has past experience in computer programming which is why he decided to join the team.

“Since I had more experience in the programming aspect, I thought it would be interesting to apply that to real world problems,” Godard said.

Peterman has even built his own robots before when he attended a camp at Case Western Reserve University.

“I have built a robot that played soccer and a robot that follows lines,” Peterman said.

Peterman also shared other skills that members will learn at the meetings.

“The goal of the team is to teach leadership, life skills and problem solving,” Peterman said.

The robotics team’s competition will be March 20th, 21st and 22nd at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University.