Corrie Hester was reluctant to get into robotics last fall when her parents wanted to start a neighborhood team in Lakeville.
"I thought, 'This is going to be terrible,' " she said.
As her team learned the nuts and bolts of robotics, however, Corrie was increasingly enthusiastic. By season's end, the rookie team — called Polar Vortex — was winning accolades, including a seventh-place finish at the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) state robotics tournament.
"I surprised myself," said Hester, a freshman at Lakeville North. "And now I love it."
Across Minnesota, the popularity of robotics is on the rise as more students are exposed to it. With society's emphasis on the value of science and technology, coaches and students say robotics provides a hands-on way to explore those fields, plus engineering and math.
"Schools are teaching all the bits and pieces of STEM, but they don't really have the infrastructure to put it all together," said Scott McDowell, an engineer and Polar Vortex mentor. "[Robotics] does that very well."