This year, the Gluons robotics team is creating a children’s book that focuses on robotics and STEM, an idea that excites Anna Hill-Jones, junior.

“We really want to make sure that these ideas that science can be fun and interesting and exciting are getting to those younger kids early on,” Hill-Jones said.

The book follows two characters, an athlete and a robotics member, where the athlete originally bullies the other character for their interest in robotics. After the switch, the characters start to gain respect for each other, and become friends by the time they switch back to their correct body. 

Being on the business side of the team, Hill-Jones focuses on crafting the book, which entails creating the plot and publishing the story. 

Hill-Jones said the plot is loosely based off of the movie “Freaky Friday”, where the two main characters switch bodies and experience life in the other person’s shoes. 

“If we have a really strong plot device, we can get it across to kids that robotics is fun and worth doing,” Hill-Jones said. 

The team plans to publish through Amazon as it is the most accessible and convenient avenue. 

Once finished, the Gluons plan to give the book out to different RSD elementary schools, the MHS library and the preschool at MHS. Hill-Jones said she hopes for the book to take two to four months to complete, with February being the latest ideal time for printing. 

As of now, the team has finished the script and the rough outline of the drawings. They are currently working on the final storyboards to share with the illustrators.

Christina Tyulyaev, senior, is helping out with coloring the book, after being provided the line art from the other illustrator, Emma Tyulyaev, senior.  

Tyulyaev is the Gluons build captain, and though she is not part of the business team, Tyulyaev decided to help with the illustration because she had the most experience with art out of the rest of her team members. 

Tyulyaev said the book will help them connect to younger kids more because it explains robotics at their level. 

“I’ve never really seen another robotics team come up with a children’s book talking about First Tech Challenge, so I think it’s a pretty unique idea,” Tyulyaev said.

Senior Dhruv Bansal, co-captain of the Gluons, said many children can be intimidated by all of the moving parts of robotics, so the book presents a clear and interesting way to communicate with them.

“One of our biggest objectives is always to try to get younger kids interested in robotics from early ages, which can be hard,” Bansal said.

There had originally been some pushback when the team first considered the idea, since some team members felt that the idea wouldn’t be properly executed. Bansal said that in response, the team decided to move forward with it under the agreement that the business team put their all into the project. 

“I think that if we execute it right, it will be really impactful in trying to get kids more interested in robotics and about the values of robotics,” Bansal said.