History

The Millbrook GearCats, FRC (First Robotics Competition) Team 6500, was established in 2016 at Millbrook High School as an offshoot of the school’s Mad Scientists Club in order to promote knowledge of emerging technologies and provide a forum for students with STEM skills which were not being stimulated by the curriculum.

As with many teams, we were hit hard by COVID. The shutdown caused us to lose a lot of knowledge and experience that was normally passed down from older to younger members, knocked us out of our build space and resulted in the loss of a few mentors. We rebounded in 2021/2022 with a team of 35 students, a third of the team being female. During our return to competition in 2022, we entered playoffs as captain of the number one alliance, our first time being an alliance captain in competition.

In 2024/2025, we started receiving more and more inquiries from students at other schools as well as homeschools. Also, struggling with the difficulties of navigating county school restrictions regarding build space and funding, we made the move to a community team model. While most of our students attend Millbrook and we still operate the fall robotics club at Millbrook, we also meet outside of the school during our off-season and welcome students from the community.