As the school year comes to a close, so do the the clubs and sports, robotics included. Although Coronado’s team did not make it to the World Championship, they still created one of their best robots yet and won numerous other awards along the way.

Maddie Miles (12), has been a part of the team all four years of her high school career, and although she is sad to see the season end, it has been an amazing experience for her. Maddie explained that the team won the safety award, and the quality award which meant that they finished the season winning an award in every category that they possibly could. Overall, the Robotics Team won a business award, a mentor award, a robot award, and a safety award. The cards played against the team this year as they did not qualify for the World Championship, but they “had an amazing robot that [they] ended up being more proud of than any robot in the past few years, and there is more than just winning and going to championships, and [the team] recognized that.”

This season proved to be a great learning experience and a lot of fun, and Maddie is sad to leave behind the family that the Robotics team has created. It was a great season to end on for Maddie though, as they “put so much effort into everything that it does not matter how [they] placed because [the team] grew, and [they] learned a lot, and that next season will be even better.” As for Maddie, she hopes to come back either while she is in college or once she has graduated, to be a mentor for the team, and help them with their essays and such. As Maddie is headed off to college at UCCS, she has handed down her community outreach sub team down to the next.

The team’s head coach, Mr. McLean, was also very proud of the team this season, along with the robot. McLean explained that the team was “in the top ten for both events that [they] competed at. [The team] actually had a really great robot, but some parts of robotics is that [the team] has to rely on others, and things just did not work that way for [them] this year.” Similar to what Maddie had also commented, Mr. McLean said that “it was a great experience and [they] had a great team, they meshed really well, and got along really well.” Overall, the team built one of the best robots that they have probably ever built and with the expertise of McLean, they made it far.

Not only has McLean been a great role model and coach for the team, he also won the Volunteer of the Year Award for all of Colorado and as Maddie said, “he was definitely more than deserving of the award and it was really awesome to see him get recognized in the way he deserves.” As the season ended, the team is proud of their work and is excited to start again next year!