Crusader Robotics is the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics program at Mayer Lutheran High School, a Christian high school in Mayer, Minnesota.
Crusader Robotics is three teams of high school students who design, build, program, and compete robots in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) — a national robotics competition for students in grades 7 through 12.
Our students meet in the same workspace at Mayer Lutheran multiple times a week during the season, which runs September through April. In the summer, our students run a STEM camp for younger kids in our community.
The program is open to all Mayer Lutheran students. We have students with deep coding backgrounds and students who've never written a line of code; students who've been building things their whole lives and students who learned to use a drill the first week of the season. Everyone finds a job they can grow into.
Three coaches share the work of supporting our three teams. Coaches don't design the robots. They help students figure out how to design them themselves.
Coach since FIRST Res-Q (2015–16). 25+ years of programming experience. Teaches technology at Mayer Lutheran.
Coach since FIRST Rover Ruckus (2018–19). Masters in physics. 10+ years of 3D-printing experience. Teaches physics at Mayer Lutheran.
Coach since FIRST CenterStage (2023–24). Teaches theology and English at Mayer Lutheran. Supports all three teams, particularly the rookie team.
Mayer Lutheran is a Christian school. We don't try to keep that separate from the robotics program — but we also don't make it the central pitch.
What we hope our program does, every year, is form young people who treat other people well. Who can lose with grace, win with humility, and put in the patient work of learning something hard. Who can sit with a younger student who doesn't understand the thing they just learned themselves last week — and help that student understand it, without making it about being smart.
That's the witness we hope our students offer. Not a slogan on a shirt — the thing lived out, in the middle of a stressful match, with a stranger's kid watching.
You can learn more about our school at mayerlutheran.org.
The best way to reach the program is by email: robotics@mayerlutheran.org.
For questions about giving, our summer camp, or visiting the robotics room, that email goes straight to a coach.
Mailing address
Mayer Lutheran High School
Attn: Crusader Robotics
306 7th Street NE
Mayer, MN 55360
To the people whose generosity has built this program across the years — coaches who taught the first generation of students; parents who drove kids to competitions across the state; families who hosted teams; alumni who came back to mentor; and donors who chose to support what was happening here — thank you. None of what's on this site exists without you.