Amy Chen ’19
Photo courtesy of episcopalacademy.org
The Episcopal Academy has two robotics teams which participate in the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international competition in which high school students have six weeks to build game-playing robots. For the past years, robotics has been listed as an interscholastic winter sports option in the student handbook due to the “time element and team dynamic,” as students practice for around 15 hours a week and compete in two to three weekend-long tournaments. However, a recent revision to the student handbook has made robotics an intramural option for juniors and seniors.
This has caused some concern among the students on the robotics team who are affected by this revision and now have to change their schedule due to EA’s athletic requirement. Because juniors and seniors are required to compete in at least one season of interscholastic sports, students who planned to compete only in robotics now must add an additional interscholastic sport to fulfill that requirement.
One of the many students affected is Bing Quan ‘19, who says, “When I filled out the sports form last May, I selected robotics as my winter interscholastic sport and planned on doing senior cut and fitness the other two seasons. However, I found out the second week of school that robotics is no longer an interscholastic option and now I’m trying to find something to fulfill the requirement.”
While this revision has shocked many, Edward Mathisen, Upper School Science Teacher and Robotics Coach, reveals that “this was the original policy when robotics was first introduced as an athletic option at EA.” However, Mathisen continues, “As the handbook was updated, the original policy disappeared and was not enforced. This led to the confusion among students when it was suddenly reintroduced this year.”
Some students affected by this policy change believe an exception should be made for this year. “Since robotics was listed as an interscholastic option when we filled out the sports form in the spring and we weren’t told about the change until the second week of school, I think this revision should be postponed until next year,” says Myles Peter ‘19.