Just three months ago, when Northview robotics opened its doors for its eleventh year and counting, tools were scattered everywhere, on tables and countertops, on shelves and metal racks. Wooden planks, bolts and metal rods of all shapes and sizes littered the ground, making up a miscellaneous collection of colorful bits and pieces on our tile floors. For veteran members, it was an obvious fact, a reminder of all their efforts and works that constituted their projects last year. For new members, it was a sight to behold. We spent our first meeting cleaning up our sacred space, the one room in the entire school that was dedicated to the advancement of our robotics team, a space we could call our own. Even now, sawdust is set in the cracks of our floors and tables, evidence of a successful, decade-long history of student-led endeavors in the Techno Titans’ pursuit of robotics.

In 2005, begun by a group of ambitious students, the Techno Titans commenced Northview high school’s first ever robotics meeting. Our team has come a long way since. Though the team started out small, membership expanded beyond its original members to include multitudes of students throughout our school. Over the years, we have received support from local companies who not only provided project funds but also valuable mentorship. And in the same way we received much support from those around us, we expanded our own activities within the community through outreach in local schools such as Findley Oaks and Shakerag Elementary as well as Johns Creek High School. With our sponsors’ help and the dedication of both parents and students, Northview Robotics was able to become the successful team we are today.

Last year, we converted to a 501 c(3) nonprofit called the Northview Techno Titans Robotics Foundation. What’s unique about our organization is that although parents handle official records and logistics, it is largely run by students themselves. Student leaders communicate with mentors outside of the organization as well as with parents and students within it, resulting in effective management across the board.

It’s easy to simply recount Techno Titans’ mission statement and say that our organization is representative of its stated principles. Besides, how noble is it “to prepare students for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers” and to promote collaboration, cooperation and mentorship within the community? But luckily, I’ve had the opportunity to experience them firsthand and can confidently say that, yes, the Techno Titans do live up to its ideals.

As a new member this year, I was worried about the expectations that came along with being part of a robotics team. I felt as if I was expected to be one hundred percent literate in the various languages of programming and the jargons of electrical and mechanical engineering. (I ended up joining the business team). To my relief, the first two weeks constituted of boot camps in specific areas we were interested in, whether it be programming, electrical or mechanical engineering, or business.

With each day of training, or in the business team’s case, researching grants and opportunities to fund our projects, I could see that the Techno Titans was not merely about the technicalities of STEM, but also about creation, collaboration and discovery. I watched as our own team meshed together on collaborative efforts in writing up strategic plans and applying for grants, communicating with both past and potential sponsors, creating and brainstorming promotional opportunities to both advertise our team and encourage more students to join. I could see how the untamed talents and unearthed gems of students in other subteams came together to design our first project of the year: Kronos, a t-shirt bot that would shoot t-shirts into the stands at football games. I could see the fruits of raw passion and love for what they do in their dedication to learning the basics of CAD and configuring the Raspberry Pi to give life to our robot. I could see ourselves coming together as each subteam contributed something valuable to our team as a whole. And it became evident that every single person, every talent and aspiration, was needed to achieve our greater goal of creating a smoothly functioning robot.

Our robotics team is a unified entity that reeks of dedication, perseverance and tenacity (besides, what other club starts their meetings fifteen minutes early to practice pitches?). And with each passing day, our team grows in cooperation, collaboration and personal skill, allowing our team to reach unforeseen heights.

Just a couple weeks ago, our entire team went behind our school to test a cannon we would use for Kronos. As it shot out a t-shirt to meet our target, we erupted in cheers to celebrate a benchmark of our currently unassembled robot. It was a physical verification that attested to its ongoing progress, one that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, the product of our first (of many) days spent after school for two hours at a time. And I realized, it's moments like these that truly make it “a great day to be a Titan.”

So what does it mean to be a Techno Titan? It means to grow individually and as a team, thinking outside the box and learning to be creative within it. It means to hone judgment to make the best decisions when presented with daunting challenges and to put heads together to solve them, knowing that two is better than one, three better than two, and ten better than three. It means to stand back and look at things from a bigger perspective, realizing that yes, while there is our immediate Northview Robotics Team there is also our incredible community of mutual support consisting of our phenomenal sponsors, sister and daughter teams and rival schools. And it's absolutely wonderful. For you know that you are an irreplaceable part of a fiercely driven team, one that will not shy away from but look challenges in the eye and meet them, one that will emerge victorious atop a mountain of complications and difficulties in order to achieve a common goal.