My brother had been on my school's NRL team and I thought it looked really cool. After I joined I really got into wiring. We started with a kit 'bot—we put it together and I wired it. Then we made our main 'bot, Juggernaut, which had a 5-inch-diameter cylinder in which all the components had to fit. I loved the challenge. So when I got to wire it I was able to learn different ways to do it in the small space."

"To be successful in robot combat  you have to be able to recognize a problem and solve it fast. Usually you only have 20 minutes between matches—and sometimes less. Once I had to completely rewire our 'bot in that time. You learn that you can't take a break—you have to want it and keep working for it. So every time something went wrong was another learning opportunity. We had to put our belts on backwards to prevent them from snapping, and we had to figure out how to keep our 'bot running even though it was hot. We used so much science there that my brain hurt after our four-hour meeting. I don't think there is any better way to learn about engineering than robot combat."

"The most exciting competition was the national one at Mall Of America because that was the first time our robot worked perfectly. It was great because we'd put so many hours into it. Getting second place in the rumble was great because all our hard work had paid off. We had a switch fire and I got to get rid of it and fix the problem. I love finding out what's wrong with things, then fixing them. I think that's exciting."