In the recent weeks after school, you could find a handful of robotics team students crowding around pieces of metal, screws, wires, gears and more trying to put them all together to create a functioning robot in Ms. West's classroom at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High.

This year is the second time the Junior High "TigerTech" team is going to the Missouri Middle School VEX State Championship.

"They have an innate desire to make it happen," Julianna West, science teacher and team coach said about the students.

West said that students are able to join the club and team with whatever skills or knowledge on the topic, and she wants everyone to leave with more knowledge than they came in with. She also teaches a class on robotics, the only one offered in the district, which does not require prior knowledge either.

The club, team and class started in the 2019-2020 school year. Right before the pandemic began, the team went to two VEX competitions for the first time. The first event ranked them high enough to move onto state when competing against middle schoolers and high schoolers. At the middle school state event, they beat three other teams, but struggled with electronics issues and did not rank.

Students part of the TigerTech at Central Junior High, from left, Kelly Mattes, Hunter Jones and James Borders, assemble the robot that they plan to bring to the Missouri Middle School VEX State Championship this weekend on Monday, March 22, 2021. The aim for the robot to transfer balls from one goal to another, seen left.Sarah Yenesel

West and a few club members agree that although they were upset about not ranking, it was a learning experience nonetheless. Their build-design this year is inspired by what they saw at those competitions.

The TigerTech were told that this year, fewer teams are going to the state VEX competition because of the challenges of the pandemic. According to West, there are only seven teams listed on the registration that are set to compete this year with the possibility of others to be added, compared to the 33 teams.

"[A lack of teams registered] gave us the opportunity to compete because, I mean, a rookie team doesn't go in normally their second year. So we got really lucky, and we are blessed that opportunity was given to us. So now we are working as hard as we can," eighth grader Dulina Dias said.

And while there are fewer teams competing, Dias said, "We showed the judges that even as a rookie team, we did a lot. We were actually able to build a robot with all the difficulties in front of us."

To create their robot, the team worked together to create the build design and code to use with a controller. According to West, the students use code called V5Pro, based in C++ and is often taught to high schoolers and adults. They are also keeping track of it all in a notebook, which can qualify them for awards in the competition and can help advance them to the next level, the VEX Robotics World Competition.

TigerTech students, from left, seventh grader Heidi Hellwege and eighth grader Grace Jones work on the notebook, which contains all the team's notes about their work of their robot, which could advance their team, on Monday, March 22, 2021.Sarah Yenesel

"Everyone is definitely striving to do better. You know, if you look around the room, there's no one person just standing in the corner, twiddling their thumbs. Everyone is trying to get to state and pushing to do better, and it's just fun to join in and to help out," ninth-grader Eric Nordstrom said. Nordstrom was part of the class and team last year and continues this year as a high school mentor.

The goal of the robot they are creating for the state competition is for it to transfer balls into goals that hold three balls each and to have the most of their balls in the goals or in certain patterns with other goals. During all of this, they are also working with another team's robot, while competing against two other robots that are working together.

"We want to do more than rank, but we also want to show younger kids that robotics is fun, technology is fun, and this can help you not only just win competitions but can help you further on into a career or job or something like that, and yeah, make you a really successful person. And the team ethic also creates good team work skills," Dias said.

"I just want to say, a huge thank you to Ms. West. She really did a lot to make [the robotics team, club and class] come here. She's amazing. And it's just awesome to work on a team where we can all work together and it's a great time," eighth grader Elijah Norman said.

West said the school district started the robotics program at CJHS to help students develop stronger skills in STEM and enhance critical thinking and teamwork.

Ninth grader at Cape Central High School and mentor to the TigerTech Gibson Curtis assembles an addition to the robot from materials he collected from Mrs. West's supplies, seen right, on Monday, March 22, 2021.Sarah Yenesel

"[The program] is igniting the spark. The spark is already there," she said.