Sophomore Lacey Peycke

Student uses her creativity to positively impact her school.

December 20, 2022

Sophomore Lacey Peycke standsin the robotics room. When she’s not busy with robotics and classes, Peycke looks ahead to her future, “I’m absolutely fascinated with the science of our brain and consciousness. Who doesn’t want to know how their own brain works? It’s the perfect overlap between biology, psychology and philosophy: three of my favorite things,” Peycke said.

The sounds of body frames, control systems and sensors. The feeling of putting each part in the correct place in
order to make the robot come to life. Creating and building is one of the many activities sophomore Lacey Peycke enjoys doing.

She is in extracurriculars including Scholar Bowl, Blue Jays Skeptical Society, and Health Occupations Students of America.

One of her favorites being robotics, Peycke has been in robotics since middle school. “Robotics has a really structured season. It’s a really great community, and I wanted to be involved,” Peycke said.

Peycke’s main job in robotics is building the robot itself. “We do a lot of different things, I’m mainly a mechanical member,” Peycke said Every year the robotics team builds a robot in order to play a game.

“Lacey had her hands on almost every aspect of the robot last year, in one way or another,” Engineering teacher Gary Pierson said. “Her calmness under pressure really shines in the heat of competition [especially] when she had to rebuild the robot’s intake mechanism.”

Peycke’s hope is to continue with robotics for the rest of her high school career.

Along with Robotics, Peycke also takes 6 advanced or gifted classes with the exception of her language class such as AP world, AP Physics and Honors Theoretical Chemistry. Peycke would like to take even more next year.

“It does definitely affect my free time. I have so little of it, especially with extracurriculars,” Peycke said. “Personally, I enjoy the challenge.”

Sophomore Lacey Peycke works on her robot for Robotics in the Z-basement as she prepares for the competition weekend ahead. Peycke has been in Robotics for a year, as well as in middle school. Peycke enjoys seeing her works come to life and really enjoys the aspect of the club. “Robotics has that really structured season. It’s a really great community and I wanted to be involved. I had done robotics in middle school, so I wanted to do it again, since I thought it would be fun,” Peycke said.

Sophomore Alexa Workman is a friend of Peycke. They met during their freshman year and were both in Gifted ELA .

“She’s involved in so much and works hard in every area she’s involved in. It’s a rare talent,” Workman said.

Peyke hopes to also follow a career path involving Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “My hope for the future is to go to a good research college and start my career,” Peycke said.