Team 5193, The Pantheon, is a FIRST Robotics team from Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy. Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy is a public magnet school that helps students focus on their passions within performing arts, visual arts, mathematics, and sciences. FIRST robotics was a completely new to idea for us. At first it seemed like it would just be building and competing a robot. Once we really understood FIRST, we saw that FRC is really something people with interests in all areas can take part in.
Our school was given the opportunity to compete by a grant provided by the state of Michigan. We faced many challenges starting a team, but we persevered and attended as many seminars and presentations as there were available to us. With the help of the gracious professionalism of veteran teams we were able to complete a successful rookie year in 2014. We will continue to compete in 2015 and many more years in the future. In our first year our team contained 16 members, one head coach, and one mentor. Already, we have increased to 25 members and one new mentor before the season even begins.