‘It’s a lot of chaos with a capital ‘K’

By Robert Williams

Editor

For mentors and team members, the biggest weeks of the year are coming up for Kaotic Robotics #4539 and this season has presented new challenges from the team make-up to REEFSCAPE, this year’s game of choice.

For the first time in 13 years, Frazee-Vergas’ Robotics team does not have a senior and is being led by three conference all-academic juniors and the inner workings and successes of teams within the team.

The team got an early boost from capturing the Northern Minnesota Robotics Conference Championship in October in Grand Forks. The early-season competition is played with last year’s game and last year’s robot.

From there, a lot of preseason work is done until January, cleaning up the shop and organizing.

“Since then, we’ve been busy,” Schaefer said.

Kaotic returns to Grand Forks this week March 12-14 to compete in the 54-team Great Northern Regional against teams from Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa.

“I consider that home for us,” Schaefer said. “We get to pick where we go but we’ve always tried to stay as local as possible.” 

The team has stretched that plan this year to include a road trip to Cedar Falls, Iowa, for the Iowa Regional March 27-29.

“We’ll see how those two events shake out and hopefully go to state,” Schaefer said.

A point system was created this year to aid teams in qualifying for state and the 600-team worlds in Houston. Each team gets points for winning and earning awards at the two competitions.

“If you win the event you’re pretty much going, but there are other avenues, as well,“ Schaefer said.

The point system was created because Minnesota has been underrepresented at the World Championship. There are 190 registered teams in the state this season and according to Schaefer, last year Minnesota only sent 16 teams. 

“A very small percentage,” he said. 

Having such a large regional competition with 54 teams can also make it more difficult for northern teams, as teams closer to the metro have regionals with only 36 teams.

“Teams from farther south, it’s not an advantage, but they have a smaller pool to pick from,” Schaefer said.

Qualifying for state is using the same point system, which does not really matter that much to Kaotic, as winning, regardless of the rules, has been a constant with Frazee’s program.

“We’ve had a lot of success and a lot of great builders and drivers over the years,” Schaefer said. “Just like in every other high school sport, when you graduate seniors they need to train the younger kids up.”

The main cast of Kaotics crew consists of three juniors Aiden King, Madison Boyer and Emily “Bean” Slevin, along with three sophomores and five freshmen, easily the youngest group Schaefer has mentored. Those kids are joined by three eighth graders and a pair of seventh graders.

“That’s new for me and a rarity for robotics, in general,” said Schaefer. “The future is looking bright.”

This year’s seventh graders got to build their own robot early in the season and took part in a competition to get a taste of what’s coming at the varsity level. They got a crate of parts and instructions of “this is your job to build this.”

“The evolution of how the game plays changes and after they decided to make it better and how to make it better yet,” said Schaefer. “Now they decided to do something else and they’re in the process of tearing it down.”

The younger team got to get its robot on the field of play in Nevis.

“They had a blast and all the other schools that were there were so impressed with how much initiative they had to build it and how good it actually worked,” said Schaefer. “It was really exciting for not only the seventh graders we have, but for other teams.”

Schaefer has another team within his team with two of his Hornet alumni daughters Paige and Riley helping the team and his third daughter Riley on the team.

“Paige never touched a robot, but she talked to the judges and other teams and did all the fundraising stuff,” Schaefer said. “She’s just a really good kid. Riley did the exact same thing. She never touched a robot when she was here; she took care of everything else.”

Paige and Riley have helped mold the team in ways that help at competitions away from the field.

“We teach a lot of soft skills,” Schaefer said. “Paige is an excellent speaker and she teaches kids how to talk to judges.”

Paige completed her undergraduate studies at the University of North Dakota and is currently in grad school at MSUM in Moorhead. As part of her studies, she is interning this year in Frazee with counselor Ta Fett.

Riley is currently pursuing a degree in elementary education at MSUM.

Schaefer always credits former teacher Andy Paulson for creating the program.

“If it wouldn’t have been for him starting this I would have never been a part of it,” said Schaefer.

Eric, or Uncle Rick as he’s known to his team, has garnered plenty of accolades in his time leading Kaotic. He is the current statewide section coach of the year and the Vice President of the conference.

“I’ve got my plate full of all of that stuff,” he said.

Kaotic is also known for its willingness to help other teams, showcased this week by inviting The Electric Lakers from Detroit Lakes into their shop to help out with programming the DL robot.

“They’re having some problems with their robot and when teams have problems they call the closest team,” said Schaefer. “That’s what this program is all about, helping and making everybody better. I guarantee you—there will be a team that shows up this week with a bag of parts and no robot and they will need help. Thursday morning, there will be four different colors in that pit. Kids teaching kids. It is about winning and losing but it’s not. It’s about making better students.”

Kaotic operates because of their annual fundraiser, weekend meat raffles and horse racing charitable gambling at Third Crossing in Frazee and main sponsors: TEAM Industries, Gene Haas Foundation, BTD Manufacturing, the Vergas Lions Club, Arvig, United Community Bank and Frazee-Vergas High School.

Upcoming events

Grand Forks Great Northern Regional

March 12-15, 2025

Alerus Center

Great Northern Regional

Iowa Regional

March 27-29, 2025

McLeod Center/UNI Dome

Cedar Falls

frc-events.firstinspires.org/2025/IACF