NEW PALESTINE — In the back section of New Palestine High School, members of the school’s Robotics Club were scurrying about inside a classroom, tinkering on robots they plan to use in upcoming competitions.
It’s been quite a productive year already for the club and the 20-some members who had two teams already qualify for state competition coming up later in the robotic season. However, that’s not the biggest thing that’s happened to the club this season.
The NPHS Robotics Club became the first in the state to open up an official chapter in the International Robotics Honor Society. The IRHS has been established to recognize high school students for excellence, not only for their efforts on competitive robotics teams, but for academics, personal character and community service.
Noah Dropsey, a senior, is the first chapter president. He believes being part of an International Robotics Honor Society can only help the school’s club.
“It will give us more merit to doing robotics, and we won’t be know as just a club anymore,” Dropsey said. “It’s kind of a big deal.”
The IRHS objectives are to elevate the profile of student participation in robotics at the school, district and national levels; encourage more students to strive toward academic excellence in the STEM fields; encourage student character development; and encourage student participation in service opportunities and encourage the participation in robotics programs.
Tim Tarplee, a teacher at NPHS, is one of the sponsors for the robotics club led by fellow NPHS teacher David Post. They get assistance from the original founder of the robotics club, Dan Ginther, a former NPHS teacher. The leadership of the club decided it would be good for NPHS to join the IRHS, which is another arm of The Robotics Education and Competition Foundation encouraging science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning.
“As of the beginning for the week, we are the only school in the state of Indiana to have a Robotics Honor Society chapter,” Tarplee said.
Tarplee said he had noticed information about joining an International Robotics Honor Society so he signed their teams up for events but didn’t know much about it. After some research, he found the NPHS Robotics Club, where students average a 3.8 or higher GPA, should create a local chapter.
“I saw there were teams from California and Florida, but not many other states or overseas, so I thought we should see if we can join,” Tarplee said. “When I saw there was not one from Indiana, I thought it was a great opportunity for our kids.”
Andrew Maple, a sophomore, is the chapter’s first secretary. He noted club members work hard to be successful during competition and in the classroom.
“You get what you put into your time with the robotics, and if you do put time in you are going to succeed,” Maple said. “This is a big deal for us and for the program itself and it will look good on college apps and our resumes.”
The team will add an officials “IRHS” member title to their website and use it as a badge of honor when they register for competitions. Tarplee, Post and Ginther, along with the students, will set the bylaws and base their chapter off of other honor societies for high school students.
“This will help set us stand apart in not only what we’re doing in competitions, but also when it comes to education,” Tarplee said. “This will be like any other honor society where we’ll buy graduation cords and everything so that will be neat for our seniors during graduation to wear them.”
Drew Potter, senior, is first chapter treasurer and said it’s nice the club has taken what he called a next step, building a good legacy for future teams to aim for as members of an official robotics honor society.
“We can continue to reach forward and being in the honor society helps bring awareness to what we’re doing,” Potter said. “I’m just excited that the engineering value at our school can be recognized.”
Kendall Steele, junior, has been in the robotics club for many years, and noted that he and the other members of the club are competitive and enjoy doing well in competitions as well as the classroom.
“The recognition of being in the honor society is pretty cool,” Kendall said.
Chase Shinkle, junior team member, agrees.
“I never thought there would be such a thing as an honor society for robotics,” Shinkle said. “We were kind of surprised they’d have something like this.”
The teachers gave individual team members until Friday to apply to be part of the school’s IRHS chapter, and most members of the club will apply and be accepted. However, it’s only open to sophomores, junior and seniors club members as freshman need time to show their grades are solid for at least a year before joining the IRHS chapter.
Benjamin Wilson, junior, has been working on robotics for eight years and like many of his club teammates he plans to go into some type of engineering career. He said the biggest challenge associated with being in a robotics club isn’t so much about getting good grades, but rather understanding the tasks at hand and learning to work with teammates.
“This has been great for me because I’m more of an introvert, and I’ve really developed a lot of team skills thanks to this club,” he said. “It’s putting me in the social aspect of life.”
He also said many of their cub members are already a part of the National Honor Society and now it will be nice to be part of an International Robotics Honor Society chapter.
The NPHS Robotics Club already carries a great reputation for excellent competition Ginther said, and now having the first International Robotics Honor Society chapter in the state should make the team members want to continue to set high standards.
“It’s nice when the team walks in and the other teams know we are there to compete,” Ginther said.
