Members of Powell Middle School Robotics will be attending the Western Edge FIRST LEGO League Open — an international robotics competition May 19 in Long Beach, California.

Five middle school robotics club members, two of which are from the club’s second place state team and three students chosen based on the results of an internal competition at Powell High School, will compete against 10 teams from California and 70 teams who are based both nationally and internationally. Powell’s team consists of Anyston Keller, Orin Onstine, Onyx Miller, Tyler Kruger and Riley Fagan.

The international teams competing, Fagan said, come from Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Ireland and Japan. The competition will be a mixture of events. The team will run its original coding from earlier this year and then, on the second day, students will redesign their robot specifically for the competition alongside two other teams. 

“We’ll meet a whole bunch of new people from different places, completely different backgrounds we had no idea about,” Fagan said.

Onstine said that he’s been looking forward to the trip “every night. I’m like come on let’s go,” he said excitedly. 

In order to make the long journey, Powell Middle School Robotics has engaged in some fast-paced fundraising in order to reach the required $7,020 to be able to travel and compete. Students have been doing what they can to scrape together the money; Miller has been cleaning yards and donating the proceeds, Kruger started a GoFundMe and Onstine raised $2,800 by asking for donations from family members. Of course, members of the community also stepped up to donate hundreds of dollars to the cause and a bake sale last Friday raised $1,250 for the team.

“Orin’s family are the ones that kind of have driven this competition. They want to see him succeed and they want to see him have that experience,” coach Leon Miller said. “And so in my book they’re the ones that started this with a nice good swift kick.”

For overnight stays on their travel to and from Long Beach the team will sleep in a donated Airbnb in St. George, Utah, thanks to Onyx Miller’s great aunt. On the way back they may spend a night camping.

While the robotics team has enough money to get them to and from the competition they are still hosting a bake sale this Friday at Blair’s from 1:15-5 p.m. to help with additional costs and any “adventuring” they may have time to do like going to a museum or sporting event. Extra funds will also go to obtaining more equipment and up-to-date software for the robotics club. This will allow more students to participate in robotics, something that was not always possible last year due to lack of equipment. An online auction will be open until Monday at go.charityauctionstoday.com/bid/2008 where students can bid on items like collectable coins from Onyx Miller’s own collection, heirloom tomatoes, a nativity set handcrafted from pewter, and more.