Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Final focus: Day before graduation, CVTC students present first phase of robotic root beer tap
College students often get the reputation of being party animals, but that moniker doesn’t usually come with a side of root beer.
Students from multiple programs at Chippewa Valley Technical College are collaborating on a unique, grant-funded project affectionately named RoboTap. The project, a robotic root beer cart that will eventually serve the frothy bevvy at campus events and demonstrations, showcases both technical and workplace skills.
The project began after College instructors, all located at CVTC’s Manufacturing and Engineering Campus in Eau Claire, recognized an opportunity to increase collaboration across programs.
“This building legitimately does and can simulate a business,” said Missy Vircks, Manufacturing Engineering Technologist instructor. “All of these departments are real departments in a business. Why would we not showcase that?”
Funded through a recently awarded grant, the multi-semester project brings together students and faculty from manufacturing engineering technology, mechanical design, welding, automation engineering, machine tool, industrial mechanics and mechatronics. Students are designing, building and programming a robotic system capable of pouring root beer while learning how to manage timelines, documentation, communication and real-world problem solving.
“This has actually been a long time coming,” said Ryan Balk, Welding instructor. “We saw early on how much collaboration there could be and how much there wasn’t.”
The first student team includes Antonio Balderas, 20, Meredith Okal, 22, and Cheyenne Schiltz, 30, who presented the beginning of the year-long project last week before graduating from CVTC’s Manufacturing Engineering Technology program the next day.
“We were given instructions to create a mobile and presentable root beer cart or robot that dispenses root beer, just to showcase basically what we do at this campus,” said Balderas, originally from Chippewa Falls. “It’s a three-semesters-long project, and we’re kicking it off, and we’ll send it off to the fall semester for them to continue.”
The students said one of the most valuable lessons has been learning how to communicate and document work for future teams.
“If you say something out loud, that’s great, you need to write it down,” Okal said. “You have to write it down for the next people, because they are not going to be able to read your mind.”
The project challenged students to apply technical skills learned throughout the program, including robotics, CAD design, project management and troubleshooting. Balderas said one major focus was understanding the robot’s work radius and safety limitations.
“I quickly learned that it’s easy to crash it, as I crashed it multiple times,” he said with a laugh.
Vircks said the project intentionally mirrors real-world industry experiences, including working with remote collaborators, managing deadlines and overcoming unexpected challenges.
“Students continue to learn resiliency,” Vircks said. “The minute they encounter a struggle, they kind of crumble, and it’s like, nope, what is one thing you can do to move forward?”
The robot’s completion is expected in May 2027, with two more presentations from different groups of students by then. The robotic root beer cart is expected to be used at campus open houses, career fairs and student events for years to come.
