CORE 2062 strives to be a place where the pas­sions of our stu­dents be­come skills, con­cepts trans­form into phys­i­cal prod­ucts, and zeal cre­ates a pos­i­tive com­mu­nity im­pact.

CORE stands for the Com­mu­nity of Ro­bot­ics En­gi­neers. We are a community of stu­dents and vol­un­teer teachers, en­gi­neers, and par­ents interested in learning and promoting STEM.  We as a team at­tempt to in­spire self-con­fi­dence, lead­er­ship, and life skills while work­ing side-by-side to solve an en­gi­neer­ing prob­lem. All these things are done while build­ing a ro­bot for an in­ter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion called the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). Our stu­dents are from the School District of Waukesha high schools and char­ter schools, promoting collaboration and inter-school unity.

Web­ster’s Dic­tio­nary de­fines “core” as the cen­tral, in­ner­most, or most es­sen­tial part of any­thing. This de­f­i­n­i­tion is very fit­ting when try­ing to ex­plain who we are and what we rep­re­sent. The team’s es­sen­tial el­e­ment is for all stu­dent mem­bers to have fun and ex­pe­ri­ence ex­cite­ment while be­ing in­volved in a worth­while en­gi­neer­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Our stu­dents vol­un­tar­ily gather out­side the school day to learn and go be­yond the rigor and rel­e­vance of the en­gi­neer­ing class­room. We gather with a sense of com­mu­nity, hav­ing one cen­tral mis­sion. And along the way, every­one grows. Stu­dents em­brace sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, en­gi­neer­ing, and math. We build life­long re­la­tion­ships. Mem­bers see teach­ers, par­ents, and en­gi­neers as men­tors, friends, and ac­quain­tances. They as­pire to learn more. But most im­por­tantly, every­one has fun!

In 2006, the Waukesha Engineering Preparatory Academy (WEPA) was launched as a charter school in the School District of Waukesha (SDW). Later that year, the SDW Administration and WEPA faculty visited the FIRST FRC Wisconsin Regional and decided to create a FIRST Robotics Competition team. The team was named CORE 2062—standing for Community of Robotics Engineers, #2062. With only 16 student members, CORE won Rookie of the Year at the Wisconsin Regional and attended the FRC Championship. Twelve years later, we have grown to a team of over 35 students and 17 mentors actively working together to share our excitement about FIRST with others.

2007 Team Photo

SDW provides crucial support to our team; our team is allowed to use facilities at Waukesha South High school in the WEPA classrooms, where we have access to the computer lab, metals lab, woodshop, auto shop, CNC machine and 3D printer. We are proud of what we’ve done since our inception. CORE has spread FIRST programs internationally, hosted over two dozen robotics tournaments and spread the FIRST message at nearly 200 outreach events to thousands of people in our community, totaling to over 15,000 impact hours. In the 2017 season, we had five rookies but due to outreach in the 2019 season, we increased our number of rookies to 15, four of whom are upperclassmen. 

Students in CORE manage the team. There are four elected team leaders: President, Engineering Project Manager, Communications Director and Safety Captain, as well as a student lead for each subteam. Being elected for these positions and operating under the titles requires the student to become a better communicator, planner and leader. In order to become a team leader or subteam lead, you must apply. Interested students fill out an application and are interviewed by some mentors. The mentors then decide on what applicants go on to the election, which is a whole team activity.

CORE alumnus Erik Orlowski has said “CORE’s model of student leadership forced me to develop my communication and leadership skills in a way that only this team could. To this day, I use the leadership skills I learned through CORE at work with Rockwell Automation, and as lead mentor for FRC Team 2830.”