CRYSTAL LAKE – Six students from Johnsburg High School surrounded their robot Saturday at McHenry County College.

As part of the FIRST Tech Challenge Northern Illinois League Championship, the group had just finished its fourth round of competition for the day, and its robot had a problem with the connection between the Android phone controlling it and the robot’s motor controllers.

After a few minutes, the team of freshmen and sophomores fixed the problem by securing the connection of the wires with zip ties.

The team, called “They might be Robots,” which meets about once a week after school and more often leading up to a competition, had been preparing for its first challenge since September.

“We started out not knowing anything, so we just kind of learned on the way,” said 16-year-old Qin Qin Yang.

The Johnsburg High School team grew out of a team Mareike Western and her father, Gary Western, started when she attended Johnsburg Junior High four years ago.

Other McHenry County schools and independent groups also have started robotics clubs to introduce students to the science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM – subjects at an early age.

Laura Beaupre, coordinator of college and career readiness at MCC, said a robotics challenge is planned for March 18 with nine schools from Crystal Lake-based Community High School District 155, Woodstock Community Unit School District 200, Huntley Community School District 158 and McHenry Community High School District 156.

The VEX Robotics Challenge, named after the VEX kits used to put together the robots, will be held at the college, and it will challenge students to design and build robots, and program them to do tasks such as climb a ramp or pick up a ball, Beaupre said.

Most schools will work on the robots through their Project Lead the Way classes, a national program that is offered in Districts 155, 200 and 158 and allows students to take engineering courses and get college credit, Beaupre said.

Robotics is “one vehicle to really expose students to design, as well as the computer science programming field,” Beaupre said.

The idea for the competition came out of STEM Alliance, a group made up of representatives from MCC and school districts from all grade ranges in the county that discusses STEM programs at schools.

“It’s really a great way at the high school level to really bring out excitement,” Beaupre said.

And there are opportunities for STEM learning for students as early as first grade through the MCC TECH Camp, Beaupre said. She said the camp’s robotics week is one of the most popular.

The importance placed on STEM fields comes in part from the high demand for jobs in those fields, Beaupre said. Exposing students to design, programming, building and presentation skills through robotics competitions can help students realize their talent in a field with growing job opportunities, she said.

Teachers from the college and experts in the field also will speak at the challenge to help expose students to some of those careers, Beaupre said.

Students participating on robotics teams learn skills outside of the STEM fields, too. Part of the competition includes working with other teams and presenting to judges.

“It’s really brought out teamwork skills that some of these kids, I don’t even think they knew they had,” said Kevin Duffy, Johnsburg High School drafting and engineering teacher and sponsor of the school’s robotics team.

Problem-solving skills also are key and require more “higher-end thinking,” Duffy said, in situations such as finding out what went wrong if a robot tips over or has another problem.

Caroline Rausch, a 16-year-old at Crystal Lake South High School, is on an all-girls team not affiliated with the school called Fruit Salad. She said she’s learned about engineering and public speaking from being on the team.

“We have to present to business officials when we go and visit our sponsors. We have to present at libraries and events that are open to the public,” Rausch said. “So we have a wide variety of experience talking to both, like, little kids at the library and also older professionals at the business.”

Rausch’s team, along with another Crystal Lake-based team, Octopi, is advancing to the Illinois State Competition of the FIRST Tech Challenge, which will be Feb. 26 at Elgin Community College.