On Sept. 20, Zebrotics held their first meeting of the school year to welcome new members to high school robotics. As the team graduated many seniors last year, they hope to bring new recruits up to speed quickly to prepare for the upcoming season.

Members are encouraged to participate in or more of the following activities: programming, engineering, fabrication, wiring, business or design. Each of these subjects is guided by a team leader.

This year, the team is taking part in two competitions: Washtenaw-Area Pick-Up Robotics, a one-day, low-pressure contest between teams within the county happening in December, and the FIRST Robotics Competition, which takes place in early spring and is a competition where over 3,300 teams build and design a robot from scratch within a six-week period for the chance to compete internationally.

“We’ve got a great group, a lot of people with good experience, and a lot of good people in general,” Head coach George Lancaster said. “So I really hope everybody learns a lot from this fall season and then, I hope we can come together to have a successful robot that can meet all the objectives of the new game once we find out what it is.”