By Wendi Reardon Price
Staff Writer
wprice@mihomepaper.com
CLARKSTON — Students on the Clarkston High School Team RUSH 27 Robotics team are preparing to take over Deer Lake Beach for their annual cardboard and duct tape race on Saturday, July 12.
“The kids are working hard,” said Kyle Hughes, coach and director for the program. “They are taking it seriously. They don’t stop. It should be a fun regatta. Boats are further along than they have ever been.”
Students are split into teams and working towards winning the RUSH Cup, which goes to the team who earns the most total points in the Cash Crusaders, Wicked Fast Watercraft and Enterprising & Seaworthy categories.
As the teams build the boats with only cardboard, duct tape and adhesive they also raise money for the upcoming robotics competition year through sponsorships.

“We are currently slowing down our fund-raising a bit,” said senior Aubrey Spencer who is on Team 2 for her fourth and final regatta. “We have contacted all of our returning sponsors. Right now we are focused on finding new people to reach out to. On the boat building side, we are currently halfway done with the actual building because we have our base of the boat built.”
“We contacted all of our returning sponsors,” added junior McKenna Schonschack on Team 3 in her first regatta. “We have two new students who haven’t done it before so they are getting a lot of new sponsors. In terms of our boat, we started earlier than most of the other groups. We already have our base completely built. We have constructed our nose cone and attached it to the boat. We are doing pretty good.”
Spencer and Schonschack shared the weather has caused a few problems with both of their teams.
“The heat wave has kept us from building,” Spencer said. “Also, since we finished contacting our returning sponsors we are talking to people who aren’t entirely sure what the regatta is about.”
Schonschack added the rain has been a problem for them as well as the same with fund-raising.
Another issue has been availability for her team.
“We have also had some issues with not being able to meet because of vacations,” Schonschack shared. “One student was gone all of last week and two will be gone next week. Then, we have one who is gone all of this week. Not having a full group of people to meet makes it hard.”
The teams also pick a theme for their boat. Team 2 is coming from a galaxy far, far away as they do “Star Wars.”
“Our team had a lot of ideas,” Schonschack shared. “I made a Google form and voting system. There was a tie. So I had to do another Google form for a tie breaker. Finally, we decided on magic.”
As all teams work towards winning the RUSH Cup, Spencer and Schonschack shared their team would win the cup this year.
“We have done some strong fund-raising,” Spencer said. “Ameera (Abdellateef) has pretty much raised all of the money for the team. She has about $8,000-plus. I come in second with $3,000. She is carrying our team to victory for the Cash Crusaders.
“Then, for boat building this is my fourth time building a boat,” she added. “I have won the actual boat race twice. I have built some pretty good boats. We also have some good cardboard supply. I think we will have a strong boat and we have done some strong fund-raising so far.”
Schonschack added Team 3 is the team to beat this year.
“My team is going to win because we have such amazing builders on our team,” she said. “They all know what they are doing, and they are so intelligent. They have great ideas. They bounce them off each other and figure out the best one. We also have amazing communicators on my team. Everyone is on the same page and can communicate to sponsors really well. And, we have magic – sparkle, sparkle.”
Come see the magic at the annual RUSH Regatta, held at Deer Lake Beach at 350 White Lake Road. The event will kick off with the boat parade at noon. Then, the teams will take to the water.
Hughes shared if unforeseen circumstances come up the event will be postponed to Saturday, Aug. 2.

  Rush Regatta, Team RUSH 27