News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Holy Gear team member George places a ball inside the robot on Friday. The team has a practice field set up at All Saints Catholic School. The robot is built to shoot balls at the blue target which acts like a hoop or basket. The balls collect in the chute.

ALPENA — Alpena’s middle-school robotics team has geared up for their first competition of the season today.

The team, the Holy Gears, is made up of middle school students at All Saints Catholic School and led by Dr. Jeffrey Costain and Sarah Costain. They are competing in the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Challenge league. Each year in early September, FIRST releases a challenge, and the teams design their robots to complete that challenge.

This year, teams have to build a robot that can collect and shoot different colored balls into a target area. The teams can earn extra points if they shoot the balls in a specific color pattern.

The Holy Gears will be paired with a robot from another team and face off against another pair. Once the competition is over, the team has to move their robot back to base. The base area is only big enough for one robot, but if one of the teams has created a way to lift up their robot so another can fit underneath, the team can earn extra points.

Teams also have to prepare a presentation about their robot as a part of the competition.

On Friday, the Holy Gears team worked out the kinks in their robot and practiced their presentation to prepare for the competition, which is taking place downstate in Howell, Michigan.

Sarah Costain said that the team went through several prototypes of their robot before settling on the final product.

The robot is shaped like a cube and moves around on four wheels, with the ball collection and shooting mechanism centered inside it. The mechanism looks somewhat like a snail shell and is made of balsa wood and fiber glass, two of the students said.

The team created their robot to be able to raise itself, which will give them an advantage and help them earn points at the end, one of the students said. It can also sort balls to shoot the colors in the right order.

All Saints Principal Melissa Doubek, who also helps lead the team, said that the robot cost around $2,000 to build.

The team also has additional parts on hand, and motors in particular in case they blow out, Sarah Costain said.

The Holy Gears are the only Tech Challenge team within 50 miles of Alpena, she said. There are 17 students on the team.

The Holy Gears will be competing in at least two competitions this year, although they are hoping to make it to the state championships. Sarah Costain said they were really close last season.

Behind the scenes, Sarah Costain has helped out the students with fundraising and community outreach. The Holy Gears walked in Alpena High School’s homecoming parade and they held a Culver’s fundraiser this week.

The fourth and fifth graders at All Saints will also be competing in robotics today, but in a different competition. They are in the FIRST Lego League, and their robot is made out of legos. The students program the robot using block code, and they add different attachments to it to complete various tasks.

Doubek said that through the league, students learn teamwork, public speaking skills, and problem solving skills, along with furthering their STEM knowledge.