My name is Rich Finley, and I am the robotics coach.  I am a software engineer at NASA and I’ve always had a love for robotics. I have co-coached robotics teams in the past and now that I am the primary coach I am super excited! I think robotics is a great way to get kids interested in engineering and programming because of how hands-on it is. My style of coaching is similar to how I manage my teams at NASA - relying on sound engineering principles to enable team success.  My main interest is programming and I love teaching the kids different tricks and shortcuts to use with coding. In my free time, I enjoy kayaking, snowboarding, and rock climbing with my family.

I'm Blake Bergstrom, I'm 14 years old, and this is my third year doing robotics. I am a freshman in high school this year and play alto saxophone in the MHS Band. In my free time, I enjoy biking, video games, and working on my 3d printer. My main role on the team is the programmer but I also help with outreach and planning as well as anything else that needs done. I started robotics in 7th grade at South Middle School and have really enjoyed it. My favorite part of robotics is probably the tournaments which is the real tests to see if the robot is durable enough. We test our robots during practice but nothing is as good as going on the field with other robots and fighting over pieces and running into each other. 

I'm Haley Finley and I'm 14 and I am in 9th grade this year. I've been doing Vex robotics for two years and I also did Lego League robotics for two years. I like robotics because I enjoy designing and building the robot. I also like the outreach portion, I think this will help me get familiar with Business because that is what I want to do when I grow up. I will be attending Morgantown High School and I play the clarinet in the MHS band. I like listening to music and going on long walks with my dog.

I am a fifteen year old highschool Freshman. Who has been doing  VEX Robotics for 3 years now. While also having 1 year worth of experience in two other STEM related competitions. My main parts that I contribute to on the team are building the robot and designing the robot.

I first got introduced to robotics in my 6th grade math class. A teacher presented how vex worked and what it was like. At first I signed the application just to see what it would be like, but after the first few practices I started to like it.  I have done vex  for two years now and have had a lot of fun. Sometimes things got very frustrating but i always got past it in the end. Now I am looking forward to  my third year of vex robotics and my firsts year being on a high school team. I hope that this year we can accomplish things that we weren’t able to do before and have fun while doing it.

Hi, my name is Lucia, and I’m a student at the West Virginia Academy. I enjoy reading and sketching. Some of my favorite books are Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J. R.R. Tolkien. Basketball is my favorite sport, and I enjoy playing the piano. I love Robotics because of the challenge and thrill of competition.  I started Robotics in middle school, and at that time, we were competing against high schoolers! I feel so proud of what we’ve accomplished, then and now.