Plum High School robotics receives $62,500 donation

Two local robotics engineers are giving back to their alma mater significantly.

Plum High School graduates Don and Joe Doerfler donated $62,500 to the high school’s robotics club, which competes in BotsIQ, a workforce development program of the Pittsburgh Chapter National Tooling and Machining Foundation.

The brothers’ own competitive team is called Brutus/Doerfler Robotics, after their father’s nickname. In December, their robot, Ugee, won the 12-pound weight class in the National Havoc Robot League finals, a tournament that requires a grueling qualifying process and features teams from as far away as Brazil.

The first-place prize was $250,000, but the top two competitors agreed before the final round to split the money regardless of the outcome. The Doerflers divided the $125,000 evenly between their choice of charities.

“I chose Plum, and Don chose BotsIQ as his,” Joe said. “My brother and I were in that club for eight years total. With all the success that we’ve had throughout that program, it was a good thing for them to get some money. Never in my wildest dream would I have thought donating this money from combat robotics was possible.”

Don graduated from Plum in 2012 and Joe in 2016. During their combined eight years with PHS Robotics, the club earned first-place BotsIQ finishes in all but one year, 2013.

At the time, it was tough for Joe to envision one donation being large enough to fund a decade-plus of activity, let alone him being the one to provide it.

“The competitions that we went to were mainly against high school teams,” Joe said. “You were winning thousand-dollar checks just for the club, for fundraising or parts, anything you needed. This money moves ground, really, for the next 10 years of this program.”

Don joined the program after it piqued his interest while looking for something to do during the school’s activity period. Being the supportive brother that he was, Joe started attending Don’s battles while in elementary school and took his own liking.

“As a family, my father, my mother and me, we’d go to his competitions, but we didn’t know what it was all about,” Joe said. “And then you saw the arena. You saw people fighting, and you’re like, OK, this is really interesting. And it just stuck.”

The entire family started to help Don with his robotics, and parents Joseph and Carolyn continued to do so with their younger son when he started high school.

Joe credits his father with helping to teach him and Don about robotics, despite Don being the original advocate of the competition. It was the handyman aspect of the job that he taught them, from hammering and soldering to electronics. Any type of construction that was needed in the robot, he was there to help.

Unfortunately, Joseph Benedict Doerfler wasn’t able to witness his sons’ acts of generosity, as he passed away in 2018.

“It was a lot for us,” Joe said. “It’s tough to talk about, but what he did for us, for robotics and just teaching us, there’s nothing that can replace that. I just look back and think about how much support from my parents has meant to me. It really meant a lot to both of us.”