THIS WEEK'S PERSONALITY: Matt Baumberger leads successful LHS Robotics Team
Ninth in a series of 10 personality stories on the top 10 academic students in the Loudonville High School Class of 2022.
This week Matt Baumberger is off to Texas, where he and fellow members of the Loudonville High School Team 590B will compete in the VEX World Robotics Tournament.
The son of Paul and Amy Baumberger of rural Perrysville, Baumberger is one of four seniors in the Loudonville High School Class of 2022 with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
Robotics achievements have dominated his senior year at LHS, as he serves as captain of the robotics team which received word it qualified for the Worlds in mid-March.
He is also the driver for the robotics team. Fellow members are Ben Sanchez, the coder; Wesley Zuercher, the builder; and Jocelyn Grassman, the team notebook keeper.
He explained that his team got off to a very rough start this year before leveling off and having enough success to qualify for the Worlds. This is the fourth time a LHS team has made the world tournament, but the first time in three years, as the tournament was cancelled the past two years because of the pandemic.
'VEX Robotics program, Ohio is one of the most competitive states'
“In the VEX Robotics program, Ohio is one of the most competitive states, and we found ourselves up against some very tough competition early,” he said. “We competed in six different tournaments, tournaments with as many as 50 teams competing against each other. But we got a lot better as the year went on, and we earned our World qualification because of our excellent skills score.”
He said the team gets one period a day to work together on robotics, and he spends his study hall time and other time as much as he can in the robotics room, always working to improve.
He and teammates will caravan in two cars to Dallas, with competition scheduled May 5-7.
“Dallas is so far, so we will take two days to drive down and two more to return,” he said.
A personal tragedy may have sparked Baumberger’s commitment to robotics. A committed football player (while just 5 foot 8, he is a solid 215 pounds) in junior high and his freshman year, he was diagnosed between his freshman and sophomore years with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, in basic terms, an enlarged heart, and had to give up football and basketball, though he still works out a lot.
“This made me work all the harder on robotics,” he said. And he had success. As a sophomore, his team won the state championship and qualified for the Worlds before they were cancelled due to the pandemic. He had a successful junior season as well, leading up to this year’s successes.
He praised his robotics teacher/adviser/coach, Josh Miller, “for working very hard with us. He helps us with everything, and has created a winning robotics tradition at LHS.”
Baumberger will attend Ohio State University
After graduating this spring, Baumberger will attend Ohio State University, majoring in mechanical engineering. In doing this, he is following in the footsteps of his older brother Jacob, who earned a degree in mechanical engineering last spring and now works for General Electric in Cincinnati. His second brother, Logan, is a sophomore computer science major at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Baumberger noted that with his 4.0 average, he gets to tease brother Jacob, who graduated from LHS “with only a 3.9!”
“Ohio State is always where I wanted to go to college,” he said. “It is a big school, with lots of internships and cooperative opportunities available, and it has a very good engineering school that worked very well for my brother.”
As brother Jacob did, he hopes to be accepted into the Engineering Learning Community, where he will be housed with other engineering majors, “where we will be around people who are doing the same thing I will be doing.”
At LHS, he says he enjoyed the STEM classes the most, along with tough math and science classes, like calculus and physics.
In addition to the robotics team, he is a member of the National Honor Society and Leo Club at LHS. In his free time, he works out, concentrating on body building and strength training, and he enjoys video games. He said he has no problems with his heart.
Worked at the River Run Canoe Livery last year and has worked at Stelas Ice Cream Parlor
He’s not sure about a summer job this year, but worked at the River Run Canoe Livery last year, and has worked at Stelas Ice Cream Parlor.
In high school he has completed five College Credit Plus courses. He admitted, “I really don’t have to study to maintain good grades, although if I realize I am lacking in some classes, I will work harder.”
He is uncertain about what career path he will follow ultimately, noting “mechanical engineering is a broad field. I hope to learn through my experiences in college and then find out what I want to do.”
Asked if anyone or anything inspired him to his academic excellence, he quickly answered “the STEM program here. It got me interested in engineering.”
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: THIS WEEK'S PERSONALITY: Baumberger leads successful LHS Robotics Team
