ESCANABA — It took a lot of volunteers to help put on the FIRST Robotics District Competition at the Escanaba High School this weekend. One of the volunteers was Shane Poisson, an original member of Escanaba’s robotic team, the Robomos.

“When I first started we were a rookie team and we had no idea what we were getting into. We had this new experience to try a robotics team. We just went with it and three years later Escanaba is hosting a regional qualifying match. It’s way further than I ever thought it would be in the past four years,” said Poisson.

Poisson is now a student at Northern Michigan University. He was asked to serve as a referee. He stood at a control panel and watched as the students controlled their robots.

“As a referee, there are five referees on the field, our job is to keep track of the scoring, ball possessions and any fouls,” he said.

 

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Poisson liked being a part of the Robomos team when he was in high school. Serving as a referee at this event gave him a different perspective as he watched all of the teams participate.

“It is definitely weird to see this set up in the school I graduated in. I’m used to seeing it downstate or in a different school. Most of the time they look exactly like this but as soon as the weekend is over it looks like a regular gym again.”