DC Public Schools cut funding substantially for the Wilson robotics team for the 2016-2017 school year. The team will continue this year, but it is unclear whether they will be able to compete in any competitions. 

In previous years, DCPS has given Wilson’s robotics team between 8,000 and 13,000 dollars of funding. This has covered part of the costly expenses that being a robotics teams entails, which includes robot parts, contest registration fees, and transportation to national competitions. However, in recent years the budget has been restricted: last year, the team was not able to travel to any of the national competitions it has travelled to in the past.

David Thompson, an instructional coach at Wilson, has worked with the robotics team for ten years now. “From what I understand they are going to restrict our funding to one competition fee,” he said.

While DCPS has been uncommunicative about the restricted funding, Thompson thinks that the cut was due to a turnover in the main office. “I don’t think they were aware how big robotics was citywide.” Thompson said that the central DCPS office in the past has helped to unite all the DCPS schools during competitions and gave them a sense of identity.

Nic Fishman, the team president, has been on the robotics team since he was a freshman. “Robotics at Wilson allows students to have access to STEM and get experience doing actual engineering and programming that is directly applicable to workforce scenarios,” said Fishman, adding that he and members of the team spent roughly 500 hours in the lab over the course of last season. “You just live and breath it,” he said. Fishman is adamant about the team’s value and importance at Wilson: “It’s really hard, it’s really fun, and it inspires in people an actual knowledge base and ability that nothing else I’ve seen does,” said Fishman.

According to Fishman the team is now focusing their attention on applying for grants and exploring other avenues of funding.

Although the team is upset about the cut funding, Thompson is choosing to look on the bright side. “It doesn’t necessarily make us a healthy team if we’re constantly relying on one funding source. It’s healthy for us because now we have to go out and find sponsors,” Thompson said. “We are going to rise above this and we might be stronger because of it,” Thompson added. •