FOREST HILLS, Mich. — A rubber duck has become the Forest Hills robotics team's good luck charm at competitions, but students say their biggest impact extends far beyond medals.
"It's always been our good luck charm, we put it on top and between every match we'll squeak it," one student explained.
The team, known as the Comets, draws students from all three Forest Hills high schools — Northern, Eastern and Central — creating connections that often begin in middle school robotics programs.
The team had recently lost their build space and is now working from much smaller workspaces they can only use until May, but has found creative ways to serve the community, including hosting bike donation drives for people without reliable transportation.
Building community through engineering
"Robotics means a lot to me. I've been in the program for four years," said Reid Sorensen, a sophomore at Forest Hills Northern. "Over the years it's become a really big deal for me, and I just love being a part of the FIRST community."
For Everleigh Surma, a sophomore at Forest Hills Eastern, the program has developed skills beyond engineering. "My communication skills have largely developed because of this, and I've been so much more confident public speaking, talking to sponsors, judges, and just communicating my ideas thoroughly," she said.
That sense of community extended into service projects. The team has hosted three bike donation drives, collecting used bikes for Upcycle Bikes, a nonprofit that refurbishes and distributes bikes at no cost to community members with financial constraints.
"Since we don't have that space anymore, we are still trying to stay connected with the program, and the best we can do without that space is just donating bikes," Surma said.
From fixing to collecting
The partnership with Upcycle Bikes began through a connection between team mentor Marti Atwater and Rick Armbruster, the nonprofit's founder. When the team had access to larger workshop, students could repair bikes themselves while learning about gears, chains and mechanisms that translate directly to robot building.
"Some students come to us and they've never really even picked up a screwdriver," Atwater said. "They're learning about gears. They're learning about mechanisms and chains. And if you look at our robots, many of them use those same kind of mechanisms. We actually have bike chains that lift an elevator on the robot."
Without the large workshop they once relied on, students can no longer use their skills to repair the bikes themselves. Now, their role is to collect and deliver as many bike donations as possible. At their most recent drive in October, the team collected about 40 bikes.
"We were giving them a system of transportation. With this, they could go to and from their job, to and from a store, and it has made their lives much easier," Surma said.
Broader mission
Team mentor Atwater says the bike drive project illustrates the broader mission of the FIRST Robotics program.
"Seeing the impact that it has on students to know that there are people in need, beyond their walls, beyond their little bubble, it can be eye opening for some students," Atwater said. "Robotics is not just about building robots, it's building community."
The service aspect has become particularly meaningful for students like Sorensen.
"Just seeing that we as a team were making an impact on the community and we could help these nonprofit organizations," Sorensen said.
Despite their limited space and resources, the team maintains a strong community atmosphere. "We spend so much time together, like 23 hours a week, come the on season, but we'll go out for lunches. We do team dinners, we play kickball," Surma said. "It's just an amazing community, and nobody's left out or excluded."
Looking ahead
The team plans to host another drive in the spring but are collecting bikes at any time.
The program continues to seek permanent workspace but for now, students like Sorensen find meaning in the work they can do. "It just made me realize how much of an impact engineering can have on everybody," he said. "It can provide transportation, like bikes, fixing bikes for people. It can just change their lives."
For more information on the team, click here.
To donate you can reach out to Marti.atwater@fhrobotics.org
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