This year, the LHS Robotics Club was lucky enough to get a chance to take not one, but two robots to state, which is the first time Loganville High School has had more than one at a state competition. The competition took place at Ola High School on February 9, 2019 and was a couple of hours long. The two robots from Loganville competed against many other high schools from the across the state in tests of functionality and skills. Both teams made it to the quarter-finals, which is the farthest in the school’s history, under the guidance and supervision of Mr. Josh Tompkins, an Engineering teacher at Loganville, who said the club, “just kind of fell into his lap.” He has enjoyed sponsoring it ever since. He is also the head of the Technology Student Association. Jake Michiels and Kevin Pietruszka are the two seniors in the Loganville High School Robotics Club, leading their teams to state. Within the club, there are two groups, one led by Michiels and the other by Pietruszka, that work on different robots, both of which made it to the quarter-finals. The club consists of Jake Michiels, Kevin Pietruszka, Daniel Burn, Brett Pietruszka, Coty Martin, William Green, and Athanasius Tesfaye. These students put in hours upon hours of hard work to ensure that each robot ran smoothly within the time allowed for the competition. Kevin enjoys what he does and puts a lot of time and effort into both the Robotics Club and TSA (Technology Student Association).Pietruszka and Michiels believe the team works best by dividing each part in a smaller task that helps to achieve the overall goal of getting a fully functioning robot. More so, the unique structure of the robotics teams helps them to fluidly complete the task needed for each meeting. While Jake’s approach is a bit different from his fellow leader, he also believes that “the club needs more people and hopes it gets more exposure in the future.” He loves math and science and figuring out how things work and hopes to work in the Computer Science field in the future. Jake’s success comes from his “competitive nature,” which drives him to contribute his best efforts when it comes to building the robot. Both Kevin and Jake have worked hard to lead their team to state competition. Through great determination, it has been a successful year for them. The leaders of the two teams, Kevin Pietruszka and Jake Michiels, have been named the “driving force” behind the Robotics Club and their success. Aside from being in charge of their teams, these two are also the drivers of their robots, which allows them to control their creations during competition. They are also the main builders, which is another one of the three duties involved in the process. The other members of the teams also help to build. Coty Martin and Brett Pietruszka have the job of programmer for their respective teams. Since the Robotics Club consists of only seven members, it comes as no surprise the majority of them joined the team because of other invested students. Kevin said his key motivator in deciding to join was a former student, Weston Allred, who got him interested in the program. Currently, there are only juniors and seniors on the team; no underclassmen have joined as yet. Kevin hopes that more students will “start young and get involved in the club because it will help in the long run to learn the skills earlier.” Once the team leaders graduate this year and only upcoming seniors are left, there will be open positions that need to be filled by talented underclassmen.