Life and career skills taught to State Finals-bound 2026 Whitehall robotics squad

BY SCOTT DECAMP

Whitehall District Schools

WHITEHALL – Jen Jura is a retired Whitehall High School math and science teacher, but she still gets a kick out of helping young people learn, grow, and work together for a common goal.

As administrator for White Lake Robotics and head coach for Whitehall’s RoboSharks Team #4956, she is beaming with pride these days.

This year’s RoboSharks squad from WHS has qualified for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) State Finals Thursday-Saturday (April 16-18) at Saginaw Valley State University. It’s the first time that a RoboSharks team has advanced to the state championships since 2019, when that squad won its division at the state finals and advanced to the world competition.

For Jura, practical lessons gained through robotics are much bigger than the achievement of qualifying for a state championship or even competing at worlds.

“Just to think about the impact that this program has on kids’ lives is huge. For them to have this level of accomplishment, it just touches my heart,” she said.

White Lake Robotics administrator and head coach Jen Jura leads a team meeting with the 2025-26 RoboSharks squad on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Photo | Scott DeCamp)

Some call robotics a “sport for the mind.” In this “sport,” everybody can go pro, Jura noted while admitting it may be a bit of a cliche. But she’s right. It’s been proven with several former RoboSharks, including:

• A former build team member, who now holds a mechanical engineering degree from University of Michigan (Alydia Jura, Jen’s daughter).
• Former members of the art design team, who are now professional photographers.
• A former programming team member, who had an internship for the NSA (National Security Agency) and is now doing top-secret work for the government.
• A former student, who was a fifth-year senior in alternative education and homeless at one time, looking to turn wrenches for the RoboSharks and is now a submarine mechanic in the U.S. Navy.

“I mean, this is a launching pad for kids to go pro in all different areas,” Jen Jura said.

It’s not just Jura saying it.

Whitehall senior Blake Dennis, a RoboSharks captain who is part of the business team, can vouch for the leadership skills gained from being part of a robotics squad.

Volunteer coach Michael Jones chats with Whitehall senior Blake Dennis during a meeting on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Photo | Scott DeCamp)

“A ton of the skills that I’ve gotten, life skills, have come from the robotics program – the way that I’ve learned to become a leader and lead groups of people, especially that come from different ideals,” said Dennis, who also possesses drive team experience and has been involved in robotics for 11 years. He became interested in robotics through his love of Legos in elementary school. 

“This team is so dynamic. There’s so many different aspects of it, and being the team captain, just kind of being able to work with all of those people and have them all end up at a common goal, which is winning competitions, I think is really a good skill that I’ve learned in the last couple of years.”

This is the 13th year of existence for White Lake Robotics. The 2026 RoboSharks squad is composed of 20 WHS students and 14 volunteer coaches. 

Having an abundance of volunteer coaches allows an average of two to three adults with three to five students on each sub-team. Students often work one-on-one with mentors, teaching them a variety of technical skills such as videography, portfolio layout, Java, spreadsheet manipulation and analysis, or using a drill press.

According to Jura, coaches have all been vetted to support the goal of having students’ skills and ideas drive the program.

Volunteer coaches chat in the background as the RoboSharks' 2026 robot affectionately named "BabyShark" sits in the build shop Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Photo | Scott DeCamp)

“I’m kind of actually close with almost everyone on the team,” said Whitehall junior Anne Thielman, who was a driver last year but is a photographer this year. “There’s people like me who are very outgoing and like to yell a lot, then there’s also a lot of more quiet, introverted people, but the space really brings us all together because we’re all working toward a common goal.”

Even before the RoboSharks learned Sunday that they’d qualified for the State Finals at SVSU – joining Mona Shores as the only two teams from Muskegon County to punch their tickets – it’s been a very successful season for the group representing WHS.

They finished qualifying rounds in fifth place overall in their first event at Lake City (date here) and second place at their second event at Orchard View (dates here). They were captains of the fourth and second alliances for the finals in those events, respectively. They also earned the coveted rank of “Highest-Scoring Match” at both events, demonstrating their ability to build, code, and drive a very high-performing robot.

The RoboSharks rank 150 among 531 teams in Michigan.

“Our mentors just stand back and watch,” Jura said. “These kids do all the work, but they’re going up against robots from other schools and there are a lot of teams that work that way. But there are some teams out there where the kids don’t get to touch the robot unless they pass X, Y, and Z, and they have parents that volunteer that are engineers that come in and design the robot for them. We’re trying to compete against those robots. 

“To have a robot that our kids from Whitehall, Mich., built, compete against the other 530 teams in the state and to be one of the top, and to be able to go to a competition with them, it’s just like saying, ‘Hey, you guys are actually awesome.’ I just feel like they deserve that recognition; they deserve to know that they’re part of the top of the top.”

A student works on the robot in the build room on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Photo | Scott DeCamp)

The RoboSharks squad consists of a number of sub-teams, including the ones previously noted (build, programming, art design) but also strategy and business.

Among the tasks of the strategy team is educating itself on the particular year’s game and scouting other squads at competitions so that it can wisely choose partners in an alliance. The business team applies for awards and assembles a portfolio of community outreach in helping to attract sponsors, among other duties.

A robotics squad such as the RoboSharks has many moving parts, just like the robot, but those parts all serve a function.

“I’ve learned the idea of working with others and accepting new backgrounds and ideas by implementing them into my life and my work that I do,” said Whitehall junior Savanna Koernke, who is part of the RoboSharks’ business team.

The 2026 FRC game is called REBUILT, an archaeology-inspired theme in which two alliances of three robots score foam balls (called “Fuel”) into a central goal (the “Hub”).

The world of robotics comes with some misconceptions. Those can be dispelled quickly if one attends, and especially participates in, a competition.

“I thought the competitions would be really boring. They’re stressful,” Whitehall senior Hunter Parsons said with a chuckle. “It felt less stressful this year because our robot wasn’t breaking all the time, but it’s still stressful.

“I don’t know, I coded some weird stuff on that bot and to see it win matches by only a couple of points, that feels pretty satisfying at the end of the day,” added Parsons, whose primary team is coding and joined the RoboSharks squad two years ago at the urging of friends. He also contributes to the build team and serves as “technician” on the drive team.

Each year, the RoboSharks name their robot after a different type of shark that tends to tie in with the function of the robot or may resemble some of the bot’s physical features.

"BabyShark" is shown in the build shop on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Photo | Scott DeCamp)

This year, it’s called “BabyShark.”

“This year, because our robot is the smallest robot we’ve ever built, that’s where the name ‘BabyShark’ came from – not just ripping off nursery school rhymes,” Jura said with a grin.

Among the many life lessons that robotics imparts is embracing failure, learning and growing from mistakes.

Jura stresses that students need to be OK with those growth opportunities.

“It makes it possible so we’re able to learn from our mistakes and make things a lot better,” said Whitehall junior Avigail Mussman, who is on the strategy team. “If our code isn’t quite working, we can fix it up really fast and possibly be able to help other teams like we did at our second competition. It also makes it possible to use it in our careers and our future, so that if we don’t do something good once, we can just try again and make it possible.”

Nobody ever said that robotics is easy – far from it.

But it can be for everybody.

“I do think it’s a lot more work than what people think it is, especially the build team,” Dennis said. “They’re in here three to four days a week for six weeks just trying to get the robot done, if they can get it done by the time the competition happens. I think that’s overlooked a lot by people, how much effort and time really goes into these things. It’s really awesome.”

Added Parsons: “Just give it a shot, I’d say. You’ll find a team that works for you. As soon as you go to your first competition, it’s a lot harder to leave after that.”