On Saturday, January 9^th, the entire Coronado Couars Gone Wired, team 2996, robotics team gathered in the school auditorium to watch the release of the 2016 First Robotics challenge. This year, the challenge is named Stronghold, and promises to be an exciting challenge for the entire team. The team has their work cut out for them as they spend the next six weeks building and perfecting the robot that will take hopefully them to the National Championships in St. Louis Missouri.

The Coronado Robotics team was started in 2009 as part of the international, FIRST Robotics competition started by Dean Kamen. The Competition brings high schools from all over the world together to compete with game playing robots, designed and built by the students.

The game for the 2016 boasts a wealth of challenges and obstacles for the team to overcome. Not only is the team responsible for building a complete working robot, Coronado high school hosts the FRC Colorado Springs practice skirmish, which means that they must construct the entire playing field in Coronado’s gym.

Robert Dawkins is the VP of special projects for the team, which means he is in charge of constructing the Coronado playing field. “This year is a lot more complex than other years. There are a lot of movable parts on the field so there is no way you are always going to have the same field”.

Throughout the school year, the Cougars Gone Wired team does many events to get younger kids excited about the possibilities involving science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. The team does robot demonstrations throughout the community as well as a number of volunteer activities.

The robotics team offers many opportunities for students to get involved in their school as well as in their community. Wish the team luck as they take on the 2016 FRC Challenge.