Rolling Meadows HS robotics team gets machine shop

Motorola Solutions will provide a machine shop on its Schaumburg campus for the WildStang robotics team, the company announced Thursday.

The team had been looking for a new location because its former shop location, at the Motorola shop in Arlington Heights, is no longer available.

The MSI Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, is sponsoring 323 teams in this year’s FIRST robotics and Lego competitions with $820,000. In addition, 80 MSI employees are volunteer mentors for teams.

The WildStang’s 68 members make it the largest robotics team in Illinois. Its awards include the 2003 and 2009 world championships, as well as being chosen the best overall team in 2006. The compete against teams made up of more than 60,000 students from 2,000 high schools worldwide.

Two-thirds of the WildStang team members attend Rolling Meadows High School and others are students at Wheeling and Prospect high schools.

Any student in Northwest Suburban High School District 214 is eligible. Mark Koch, the team’s lead teacher, can be contacted at Mark.Koch@d214.org.