For Students

Club Calendar

Click here for the calendar of meetings and upcoming tournaments.  The calendar will be continuously updated throughout the season.

I'm in the club.

What are the expectations?

Please refer to the Club Expectations page.

When do we meet?

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:45 pm to 5:00pm in the Birkett Freshman Center, Room H123.

When are our competitions?

Local, qualifying competitions occur from roughly October through early February.  The state competition typically occurs in late February or early March, and the VEX World Championships typically occurs in late April.  The district supports qualifying competitions and the state competition.  The VEX World Championships is not supported by the district.

Will there be additional costs that my family will need to cover?

All participants must pay the district activity fee (approximately $200).  The VEX World Championships (Dallas, TX), should any team qualify, must be paid for by the participants. The cost may be substantial to cover air and ground transportation, hotel, registration, and other costs.  The exact cost will be calculated as these events approach.  Each student and their families will determine individually whether or not to participate in this event (if qualified).

How do I check out equipment?

Equipment will not be checked out.  All work will be done at Neuqua Valley with equipment transported to and from Neuqua Valley to tournaments.

I didn't make the club.  What else can I do?

The most difficult aspect of the NVHS Robotics Club is that there are always more students interested than the club can accommodate.  Resources that support the club--equipment, registration funds, work space, and staffing–limit the club to seven teams with six students per team.  It is heartbreaking to know that some eager students will be excluded from the club roster.  However, all students who applied, but were not accepted, will be placed on a wait list should an opening occur during the season.  There are also other options to pursue robotics and STEM interests:

• Start your own robotics team: VEX, the national organization that governs competitions, does not require school affiliation to compete.  Students could form their own independent team outside of NVHS.  The students would need to purchase their own VEX robot equipment,  meet outside of school (perhaps at home), and pay registration fees for a given competition.  The VEX V5 Competition Super Kit includes the necessary equipment to start a team.  It runs about $1,500, but this cost can be shared by all team members.  During the 2020-21 robotics season, a former NVHS robotics team opted to form their own team and participated in the World Championships.

• Join another STEM-related club: Several other clubs, such as Team America Rocketry Challenge, SkillsUSA, and IDEA offer students a chance to compete using STEM skills at large state and national competitions similar to Robotics Club.

  • Aerial Robotics Club.  This club is focused on engineering applications of drones rather than racing.  Similar to robotics, Aerial Robotics Club received numerous applications for limited spots and has already selected its members.  For more information about Aerial Robotics Club, email Mr. Tegtmeyer at anthony_tegtmeyer@ipsd.org.   To maximize student participation in either robotics or Aerial Robotics Club, students selected for these clubs may participate in either robotics or Aerial Robotics Club, but not both.

  • Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC): Launch rockets with the Team America Rocket Challenge (TARC).  In this club, you’ll design, build, and launch rockets to reach, perhaps, to Washington D.C.  If your rocket team launches a rocket to the Top 100 in the nation, you may compete at the national level in the nation’s capital.  The first meeting is anticipated in early September. For more information, please email Mr. Tegtmeyer at anthony_tegtmeyer@ipsd.org and check out https://sites.google.com/ipsd.org/nvhs-tarc. 

  • SkillsUSA: Show off your technical skills at a two-day rockin’ state convention in Peoria.  SkillsUSA is an organization that celebrates career technical education with competitions ranging from construction skills to coding video games to a quiz bowl--and so much more that I couldn’t possibly list it all here.  The variety is endless. SkillsUSA meets Wednesday mornings at Neuqua to prepare for the state conference. Neuqua has done very well in these competitions, sending teams to the week-long national conference in Louisville, KY each June.  For more information, please email Mr. Rose at mark_rose@ipsd.org and check out https://www.skillsusa.org/.

  • Illinois Drafting Educators Association (IDEA): The Illinois Drafters Education Association (IDEA) hosts regional and state contests.  Traditionally, these contests focused on manual and CAD drafting challenges. However, IDEA is modernizing their contents to be a more holistic engineering experience.  For more information, please email Mr. Rose at mark_rose@ipsd.org and check out http://www.idea-online.org/.

  • Girls in STEM.  This club promotes STEM opportunities for females and includes speaker engagements, community outreach, and other projects developed by the club.  Please email Mr. Tegtmeyer at anthony_tegtmeyer@ipsd.org for more information.

• Take PLTW courses: The PLTW Principles of Engineering (POE) and Aerospace Engineering (AE) courses include projects using the same VEX equipment used in the Robotics Club.  It also includes in-class competitions that meet the needs of particular lessons.  The PLTW Digital Electronics (DE) course studies electronic circuits used to process and control digital signals.  Other PLTW courses include Introduction to Engineering Design (IED), Civil Engineering and Architecture (CEA), and the capstone course, Engineering Design and Development (EDD) and do a tremendous job building STEM skills.

• Apply again next year: If you are a freshman, sophomore, or junior and did not make it to the robotics team this year, please apply again the following year.