Last year the robotics team attempted its first robot and qualified for national competetion after winning the Rookie award at regionals.  
This year, they hope to build upon the knowledge they gained last year. In order to raise money for their costly invention, Shakespeare’s Pizza is sponsoring the club Thursday, Jan. 26.
“If anyone buys pizza [at Sheakspear’s] on Thursday, they will give us 15 percent of the profits, which is awesome because we really, really need money,” junior Theo Choma said. “We spent easily more than $10,000 dollars [on last year’s robot.] It’s not a cheap program.”
 In addition to their pizza fundraiser, the robotics club raising money by selling cookies. Piggybacking off the Thursday “Cookie Day” tradition at the Career Center, the team goes around selling cookies to students every Wednesday.
 “We buy dough from CAD, and we sell cookies on Wednesdays now,” Choma said. “We limited ourselves to the Career Center last week, but this week you can get fresh cookies at Rock Bridge, too.”
Selling cookies not only raises money for the club but also helps increase awareness of the robotics program, he said.  Because they are a new club, not many people know about them, despite their showing at Nationals last year – something the team is trying to change.
“We have a time slot at the court-warming assembly for us to showcase our two robots. With the old robot, it picks up pool floaties and hangs them on a rack,” Choma said. “We’re also running [the new robot, which will be] shooting basketballs.”  
By Kirsten Buchanan�
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