Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin School's robotics team ranked first in the state

Feb. 11—Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin School's robotics team recently swept the Kirtland regional qualifying meet 9-0, allowing them to not only earn the top ranking in the state but have them heading to the state tournament in March.

The Lions will compete in the state tournament March 11 in Troy. Of the 21 teams that competed in the regional at Kirtland High School, the team earned the event's high score of 173 for the first five qualifying rounds, according to NDCL. They remained undefeated in the semifinals and finals, setting a record high score of 188, clinching a spot in the state tournament.

Science teacher Zack Geizer, who coaches the robotics team with assistance from math teacher Ashley Kelm, academic coach Tony Hodun and parent volunteer Richard Ruggeri, said the team's success shows that they were able to build a strong, competitive robot early on in the season.

"Our team was able to work together well and efficiently, and we achieved pretty much all of our goals on schedule or ahead of schedule," Geizer said.

In addition to holding the first and second highest scores in Ohio, the team ranks 91st nationwide. The team also won the Promote Award for a video produced by senior Madelyne Morris and the Control Award for programmed autonomous routines written by senior Nic Ramsey with assistance from senior Nathan Galante and junior Catherine Orazem.

"A lot of people are afraid to try out for robotics or they're just reluctant to because they don't think they would fit in, but it takes all kinds," Geizer said. "There's a lot of different roles on the team. It's not just building and programming. There's promotion and non engineering-based things."

"Everyone says, 'I can't program, I can't 3D print, I don't know how to build,' " echoed Ruggeri. "You have to realize we need artists to make videos, posters and stickers."

The robotics team started out as just a little club, said Kelm, former head coach who has been involved with the team for the last 13 years.

"We started out not scoring well at competition," she said. "We have put a lot of hard work into it with Ruggeri and Hodun to reorganize, and make it a competitive sport to turn a club into a team. We start at the beginning of the school year and go through March. It's a long season."

All the hard work has allowed the team to perform well for the last four or five years, Kelm said, noting that sweeping the regionals was a treat.

"They've been performing outstandingly," she said. "I'm proud of the kids for all the dedication, hard work, time they put in and their talent."

When students attend the team's informational session in the early fall, current team members spend time talking about once not knowing anything about robotics to being trained, Kelm said.

"It's not the adults who are training," she said. "It's the students. The adults are here to guide, help and facilitate, but those kids are the ones who put together the training modules and train each other, so it's peer-to-peer training."

As a senior and team captain, Alexandria Nevison was excited to get back to in-person, post pandemic competition. Going to the regional competition and not being defeated was the highlight of her last year at NDCL, she said.

"My best friend got me into this," she said. "I was hesitant at first, but the people I get to meet not just on the team, but other teams — it's a cool experience.

Nevison has plans to go into the medical field in the future, nothing like engineering or robots, she said. Being able to talk to different people has allowed her to work on her communication skills as not only a leader and team member, but as a person.

"That's the big part for me," she said.

For Galante, a driver, 3D modeler and programmer, being on the team has given him a good learning opportunity for what he wants to pursue down the road.

"I knew I wanted to go into engineering since seventh grade, which is not ordinary," he said. "I fell in love with programming and I want to go into computer science because of it, so I've spent the last four years honing the skill."

Galante feels the team has earned the success it has found.

"We've worked our way up to this," he said. "We had two (coronavirus) years, so we came back raring to go. It was the fastest we've ever built a robot, the fastest we've ever programmed and we had a lot of time to practice."

For it being her first year at NDCL and on the team, Angelina Serre-Baraga was excited as the team worked hard, putting a great deal of time into everything. In addition, being on the team has allowed Serre-Baraga to bond with everyone.

"I'm a hands-on person, so I started off as a builder," she said. "I got to learn how to use all the tools and how to assemble the robot, but then I slowly got into promotion and design, playing around with shapes and logos. I want to set up my own business, so that's helpful. We're not just programming and 3D printing. I make stickers."

Nevison encourages anyone who may be interested in joining the team to keep an open mind.

"I feel a lot of us think a certain way about a certain topic like if you think of sports," she said. "You think, 'They work out a lot.' You look at robotics and think, 'It's just nerd math.' If you try it once, that's way better than regretting it in the future."

Galante said that team members are self starters, hard working and trained in skills that can be used for post high school, all of which are reasons he'd encourage people to join.

"I know our team prides themselves on it and I would assume a lot of teams follow suit," he said. "We're trained to learn to time manage and skills that aren't just STEM."

"It's cool to see kids who were freshmen now seniors training the kids below," Kelm said. "There's time and a safety net in terms of if you fail, nothing catastrophic is going to happen. We'll catch you. That's how we learn."