Some people may not know this, but Watertown High School is home to its very own robotics team.

The KwarQs (also known as Team 2423) have competed for many years as part of the FIRST Robotics Competition. FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 as, written on its website, “The ultimate sport for the mind.”

The KwarQs meet every Tuesday night for the first term and a half of school. But after the first Saturday of the new year, everyone goes into full steam as competition season begins and the team builds a robot in month to be ready to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Every year has a different theme to the FRC, which also helps to determine what the challenge will be. Last year, it was “Steam Punk” and each team was set to deliver large gears to an “airship” — really a platform in the arena — so that human players could power up the rotors to make them spin, thus earning the team points.

The KwarQs were especially good at delivering a consistent amount of gears every match, also having a human player in the airship from Team 2423 helped to secure its wins.

This year, FRC’s theme is “Power Up!” and set in the style of retro video games. Very enticing. None of the teams have any clue as to what the actual play will be, and will not find out until Jan. 6, 2018.

This team helps student to learn how to work through problems and tough decisions, it helps the students find areas that they are interested in — or find what they are not interested in — and it helps with teamwork and how to be courteous in a competition.

But the KwarQs need money to be able to compete. On Wednesday, Dec. 13, the club will be holding a fund-raiser at Launch trampoline park in Watertown from 4-8 p.m. The fund-raiser will help take care of the team’s general expenses and needs, things such as travel and lunch for the hard-working students and mentors. By showing up at Launch to bounce, you can show your support for all the aspects of your high school.

–Dec. 11, 2018–