2 homeschool parents unite to coach teen robotics team, expand STEM opportunities in McHenry County

Before Cary resident Melissa Ryan started a McHenry County-based robotics team for high school students eight years ago, she did not imagine herself ever being involved in such an endeavor. Now, she and her team of five high school students have advanced to an international robotics competition for two consecutive years.

“I just felt like there was such a need here: so many kids who are not athletes or really into football or basketball, but really have the brain power to want to put that into action into something exciting,” she said.

Ryan started the robotics team, called The Golden Ratio, with her eldest son in 2017. Word spread, and she met future co-coach Tammy Massey when Massey’s son joined the first team. Their sons became founding members and are now close friends.

“We had no idea if we’d even get anybody to come, but it was just one of those ‘if you build it, they will come,’” Ryan said.

Last year, the team finished 23rd out of 56 in its division on the global stage and finished 31st out of 64 this year. The FIRST Championship is an international competition for youth robotics teams to show off their skills in science, technology, engineering and math.

The 2025 Golden Ratio team includes Ryan Nolan, Jackson Woestman and Josiah Ryan from Cary-Grove High School; Josh Weston from Johnsburg High School; and home-schooled student Nehemiah Schultz from Island Lake.

Melissa Ryan, who is lead coach and calls her team the “humble winners,” describes the competition as a way for teams to create a “microcosm of a small engineering business.” By involving the students in marketing and networking their team, they learn so many more lifelong skills outside of the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, she said.

“The soft skills they learn are equal, if not more valuable, than the technical skills,” Ryan said.

With no background in science, Ryan never thought she would be immersed in the STEM world. She describes her volunteer coaching role as a “free part-time job” aside from her full-time role as a homeschool teacher and tutor. Massey, who is from Carpentersville, has a degree in science and has been teaching high school biology, chemistry, physical science and physics as a homeschool teacher for nearly 10 years.

“I love to watch the kids learn and to challenge them and to see the lightbulb go off,” Massey said.

Ryan also teaches public speaking, resume writing and other career preparation help to adult students, which comes in handy with The Golden Ratio too. At one point, she thought of opening a tutoring center, but that goal is on hold as she juggles coaching The Golden Ratio on top of everything else.

“I can’t manage a tutoring center, a robotics team and being a single parent all at the same time,” she said. “I’ve opted not to open up a tutoring center, but that might be down the road sometime.”

The Golden Ratio team works out of a space at Trinity Baptist Community Church in Crystal Lake. Not only does the team use the space for for competition preparations, but it’s also a hub that the community can use so STEM activities can reach more people. The Golden Ratio hosted scrimmage meets with other Illinois teams last year and has been working with three teams in Jamaica by helping them code and create their own robots.

Ryan and Massey would like to see their STEM community grow with more teams and camps for all ages. In order to accomplish that, they need more people interested in helping and participating, Ryan said.

“We need adults who are willing to throw their hat in the ring and we need kids that want to come,” she said.