In sixth grade, Allen Spadafore (‘26) would never have expected to be joining the Robotics team again for the fourth year running. Nevertheless, he is once again involved in Chelsea’s Robotics program, and the amount of time he has spent tinkering with robots and writing reports has sprouted into a love for the activity that has persisted into high school and will likely continue.

“I never was really into robotics and building robots, but I figured I thought I’d give it a try when I heard about the all-girls Gremlins team in sixth grade,” Spadafore said. 

Spadafore is an involved student at CHS, and aside from Robotics, he participates in SAGA and the Internet Culture Club that was formed earlier in the school year. Spadafore says that it was mostly teachers and friends who encouraged them to join these two activities.

“Mrs. McCalla inspired me to join the high school SAGA group,” Spadafore explained. “She talked to me about the middle school one and when we had a picnic with the high school group, I knew I wanted to be part of it as well […] I learned about the Internet Culture Club through my friends who had joined early on.”

As a member of a high-commitment extracurricular, like Robotics, Spadafore needs to have a tight grasp on time. However, he knows his schedule like the back of his hand.

“SAGA normally meets during Bulldog Block, Robotics, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and the Internet Culture Club meets Tuesday afternoons,” Spadafore said. “Internet Culture Club meets in a classroom down here. And then we meet in the counseling office for SAGA, and then Robotics is at the old high school.”

With so much time taken up by one activity, one would think that Spadafore would struggle to add more to their life. However, he explains, time wasn’t the problem with the sport they wanted to participate in.

“I wanted to do tennis, but it [the issue] wasn’t really schedule-based,” Spadafore said. “It was really more of my gender. There was the girls and the boys’ team and I’d have to be on girls.”

Despite the disappointment of being unable to play for Chelsea, Spadafore is having fun with the new Internet Culture Club. While the club is focusing on playing video games and having fun for now, Spadafore expects the club to focus on internet safety in the future.

“One of my friend’s older sisters, who runs the club, brings us, like, Super Mario Bros or other games she owns at home,” Spadafore explained of current meetings. “And normally as a group we will take turns playing the game together for the whole hour.”

With two tech and computer-based clubs on their roster, Spadafore demonstrates skills in this field. In addition, he also brings something else to the table when it comes to Robotics: photography.

“A lot of the time we have had to make a notebook for it in the last year at the middle school, so taking the photos helped a lot,” Spadafore said. “It also helped us get the Inspiration Award those two years.”