Members of TechHOUNDS are halfway through the preparation for their upcoming competitions. The team’s first competition, the Boilermaker Regional, will take place from March 14 to 16 at Purdue University. The team’s objective is to create a robot that is capable of picking up and throwing a Frisbee. Team sponsor George Giltner is in charge of making sure the team stays on top of their tasks. “This is one of the most challenging robots to build because humans struggle picking up and throwing Frisbees, so creating a robot that can do so is difficult,” Giltner said.

The team faces many parts of the building season that are stressful, but has many fun and memorable times. They build every day after school and are dedicated to winning this year. Team leader Akash Shankar speaks for the team when he says the hardest part of building the robot is being able to make it pick up a Frisbee. The team pushes through the tough parts and focuses on the fun and enjoyable parts. “The most fun part of the build season for me personally is seeing how a bunch of raw material such as metal, etcetera, can make something that is capable of doing something incredible such as shooting a Frisbee into targets,” Shankar said.