Oregon City high schoolers can join the district's competitive robotics team for free and earn career and technical education credit.
Skynet, the Oregon City School District's F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Team 2550, opened recruitment and is accepting applications from high schoolers across the district through Dec. 17, according to the district. The team has nearly 30 members and is looking to grow.
Joining costs nothing. Students can earn Career and Technical Education (CTE) credit toward graduation while learning machining, welding, electrical work, programming and computer-aided design (CAD).
Becky Miller, Skynet's assistant coach and a science teacher at Clackamas Academy of Industrial Sciences, said the program helps students launch careers after high school. She said she knows several graduates who went into engineering or the trades. She recently wrote a recommendation letter for a Skynet alum who works in a machine shop and is pursuing a career as an electrician.
"If [F.I.R.S.T.] is on your resume, people know it," Miller said.
Miller said college-bound students also benefit. F.I.R.S.T., an international nonprofit that runs K-12 robotics competitions, offers numerous scholarship opportunities, she said.
The team operates on two schedules. An off-season running through Jan. 9 is used to train new recruits. Competition season runs from Jan. 9 through April, when the team builds a robot to face other squads in themed challenges. The 2026 competition theme was archeology-based.
Building the robot is just part of it. Skynet runs its own marketing and finance departments, and students handle fundraising and community outreach themselves.
"This was all team motivated and team driven," Miller said.
During the 2025-26 school year, the district funded Skynet to build miniature robots called bugbots. Team members visited every fourth-grade classroom in the district to teach a lesson on electricity, energy and energy transfer aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. Every fourth grader took a bugbot home.
The bugbots also showed up at First City Fest in July, where the team handed out more of the miniature robots and displayed their full-size competition robot. In February, team members traveled to the state capital in Salem to advocate for increased STEM and CTE funding, meeting with state legislators.
The team also rebuilt its t-shirt cannon and launched shirts from the sidelines at the Homecoming football game.
Students who want to apply can contact Miller or visit the team's website. Meetings are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., in Room C110 at the 12th Street Campus.
