The MC2STEM Robotics club was started along with 3 other CMSD schools to form the Greater Cleveland FIRST Robotics initiative, in partnership with the Great Lakes Science Center. Our team's primary functions are centered around preparing for and competing in regional FIRST competitions. FIRST Robotics Competitions are global robotics events that challenge high-school students to build a robot that can compete in an engineering challenge. The game changes every year, and is released in early January, with competitions taking place just 8 weeks later. Students are tasked with learning skills in engineering alongside industry professionals and mentors in order to build a competitive robot in a very short timeframe. FIRST alumni are highly sought-after in the professional world, and there are over $80 million in scholarships available to FIRST students.

In addition to the annual competition and build season, the RoboManiacs participate in many community service activities, as well as skill building workshops year round. This month, we will be 3D printing prosthetic hands for students around the world that are missing limbs, as well as participating in programming and chassis-building workshops to help us prepare for the upcoming season.

A common theme in FIRST is "More than just Robots", and this could not be more true for our organization. Students do not only learn valuable engineering and coding skills, but skills in fundraising, communication, design, leadership, and management. Students will be interviewing soon for a variety of roles on the team, and will be able to lead a committee of their peers if selected in anything from designing the robot, to creating out first team documentary that will be shown to rising first year students in IMAX.