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The success of the robotics team was a topic of discussion during the Jan. 4 meeting of the Lapeer Community Board of Education

Dayonte Grimes, the district's CTE & Work-Based Program Supervisor, presented the results of the AMTC program, which revolves around robotics, automation and machine technology. The program has classes available to both high school students and adults, though all opportunities for students will always be completely free of charge.

“So, the program is based off of providing four types of individuals – operators, maintenance techs, programmers and engineers. There are many different avenues that our students can take,” he said. “Not everybody will love being in the program. Not everybody would want to jump into engineering not everybody would want to be an operator, but we kind of dive into different areas of the industry and show them what's out there, what's available, and that way they can pick and choose for themselves what they want to specify, what they want to dive deeper into."

The current class consists of 33 students, with 10 returning seniors and 23 new juniors. Only juniors can currently join the two-year program. Originally the class was going to be capped at 30 students to ensure everyone access to limited machines, but they managed to fit 33.

There is a lot of interest from underclassmen for the program, so they will have to operate on a first come, first serve basis, as well as looking at absence records, Grimes added.

The program is teaching students a variety of industry standards, including the basic skills like measuring, building and evaluating, but also how to do so without using too much of a limited resource or without purpose behind the tests.

Grimes said one of the student’s favorite projects is creating their own RC cars within certain requirements.