Every kid has a job.

Hayden Hibbler, 12, and Quentin Alan, 11, for example, work on a custom intake for the robot. Blaise Peters, 12, works on building and coding the robot. Lily Barth, 13, works on marketing. Conner Heald, 13, takes pictures and posts to the robotic team’s YouTube channel. Gianna Kinney, 12, helps with flyers.

In came Evan McDonald, 17, and Madison Shearer, 18, mentors from the Alpena High School robotics team.

“I can’t even begin to explain how much work they’ve done this year,” said Sarah Costain, a parent and adviser to the team. “The kids have done all the work.”

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley From left, All Saints Catholic School middle school robotics team member Braxton Mitchell, high school mentor Madison Shearer, high school mentor Evan McDonald, and All Saints middle school robotics team member Blaise Peters work on Jeffrey, the middle school team’s robot, on Monday afternoon at All Saints in Alpena.

Monday’s flurry of activity was all part of All Saints’ effort to embed robotics throughout the preschool-through-eighth-grade school, an effort led by Principal Melissa Doubek, who helped build the robotics program at Alpena High School before joining All Saints.

The school’s fifth-grade team this year made it to states and will compete in Mason in January.

“We start them right from first grade,” Doubek said.

The principal said she’s doubling down on robotics because of everything it teaches children. Beyond the obvious science, technology, engineering, and math (or STEM) skills, robotics teaches kids how to problem-solve and how to collaborate, Doubek said. It teaches them public speaking and reading and writing skills as they prepare presentations for competition. It teaches them marketing and fundraising as they seek sponsors and other money to support their teams. It teaches them patience.

“It’s kind of like a word search, and I really like doing word searches,” said Hibbler, of the middle school team.

News Photo by Justin A. Hinkley Hudson Wallace, a member of an All Saints Catholic School robotics team, prepares a set for the team’s robot to perform a challenge at the Alpena school on Monday while Ellie Wallace walks in the background.

“It improves our technical skills for a later day in case we ever want to go into engineering,” said Barth, of the middle school team.

Does she want to go into engineering?

“I would say it’s one of my options,” she said.

Check out the video below showing off the All Saints Catholic School middle school team’s robot, Jeffrey. Viewing on mobile? Turn your device horizontally for the best viewing experience. Story continues below video.

The middle school team has worked on Jeffrey since September, supported by more than $3,000 the students have raised through a bottle drive, through serving customers at Culver’s as part of a program that allows groups to share in Culver’s revenue, and by selling concessions at All Saints volleyball games.

On Monday, the team pushed to get Jeffrey ready for the contest on Dec. 7 in Pellston.

At the back of the room, the mentors McDonald and Shearer, along with All Saints students Peters and Braxton Mitchell, went to work trying to get Jeffrey to climb a ladder-like structure and hang, one of the tasks the robot will have to perform to earn points at the competition.

Last year, the middle school team came in 33rd out of 36 teams at the regional competition.

The students hope for a much better showing this year.

“It’s all coming together,” Costain, the parent and adviser, said.

“It’s so much better than last year,” Barth said.

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-354-3112 or jhinkley@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on X @JustinHinkley.