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Grosse Pointe’s Robotics Team, the Gearheads, is heading to the Woodhaven District competition on March 8 through March 10 for their 21st season. Every year, the Gearheads receive the details on a game for a competition, and team members work rigorously every week to create a robot to complete the game and to score as many points as possible to win the event. Grosse Pointe North Team Captain Drew Behringer ’25 has been involved with robotics for six years in his time with the Gearheads.
“We get our game released on the first Saturday or Sunday in January, from there it’s all about planning and figuring out the most optimal way to play their game,” Drew said. “In that first week, we begin to prototype different ideas to see what will work best. After prototypes are finalized, we begin to iterate our design and put the robot together.”
The Gearheads meet every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6-9:30 p.m., as well as every Saturday from noon- 9 p.m. at Grosse Pointe North. They have team meetings and discuss many different ways to create the most optimal machine possible. Being a member of the Gearheads involves you in different aspects of mechanical engineering. Different members of the Gearheads have different roles: some members control the machine, others write vision detection code and create robotic parts. South student Kaden Boismier-Buhr ’25 has been a Gearhead for two years and has gained loads of experience working on different aspects of a robot.
“The experience that we offer through our program will stick with you for life if you stay in a STEM fielld—personally; working with code has helped me greatly,” Boismer-Buhr said. “A lot of different teams just buy different camera softwares, but we code our own vision process, and use other free outside applications to assist us. So far, we’ve been very successful in implementing our ideas.”
Forty teams from around the state fill the gymnasium and teams play around 12 qualification matches for tournament seeding. Games are three versus three to see which team scores the best. After all 12 games have been played, the top eight teams play in a double elimination—best of one tournament with a best of three finals match to be crowned as champions. Gearheads Faculty Adviser Erin Tabor has worked with the gearheads throughout their building phase and is ecstatic to begin the competition phase and win the Woodhaven District event.
“We’re very confident about our robotics we’ve built for this season, and we’re more than prepared to face whatever challenges lie ahead of us,” Taborsaid. “I’m very proud of how far this team has come and very hopeful to hang up another banner for the 2024 season.”
