Caden Heyn is a journalism student at Gilbert Christian High School assigned to cover high school sports for AZPreps365.com

 

Noah Kim is a current junior at Gilbert Christian High School. He is a member of the Robotics team and does a lot to help them prepare for competitions and compete in them. However, with a pandemic going on things have looked a lot different this year for the Robotics team. So I asked Noah a few questions regarding the season.

When asked what he likes about Robotics so far, Noah responded with, “I like how I get to mess with all the cool machineries and tools. I've always liked building and taking apart things. It’s also really fun to hang out and bond with my teammates.” 

Noah then mentioned some team goals, “As a team, our first and most important goal is to honor God through everything we do. Our second, but also very important goal is to win as many competitions as we can. My personal goal would be to maintain an appropriate balance between robotics and academics so that I’m not completely ignoring one or the other.”

When asked about his teammates and what he’s learned about them so far he said, “I have learned that we are a very hard working team even though we don’t have all the resources that other teams have. I think we are doing great as a team. Actually, I would prefer to call us a family more than anything. We also get along with each other very well. Again, I want to emphasize that we are more of a family than a team.”

Some challenging parts of the season are that they lost a majority of their veterans last year and have only two of them remaining on the team this year. The new members on the team did not know anything about Robotics when they first joined the team, including Noah. “I think the most challenging part was having lots of new people.” Noah stated. Through leadership and mentorship from Mrs. Field, former alumni of the team that come and help out, and the two returning members, the new members were able to catch on fairly quickly.

I then asked Noah what his role on the team was this year and he replied with, “I am a builder, which means that I build the hardware part of the robot. Programmers are the ones who program the hardware so that it behaves in certain ways.”

The highlight of his season so far has been when they qualified for the states. Lucky for GCHS, Noah said that he will be competing with the team again next year but right now he is focused on winning at state this year. The Gilbert Christian High School robotics team is currently holding fourth place in the entire state!

I am really looking forward to watching Noah Kim and the Robotics team continue to compete this season and keep on winning.