Among the many electives, AP classes, extracurricular activities, sports, and clubs that the school offers, a newcomer joins the roster: robotics.
The robotics club is through EAST, and the main goal for the team is to create a machine that is capable of completing a set task, or a robot.
“We have to build a robot to pick up fake cockroaches, flies, and termites,” said senior Justo Herrera.
The eight students on the team are only able to use the resources given to them for this project, but other than that, they have requirements that have to be met.
“Since it’s a robotics team, we have people working on different things at different times. Along with actually making the robot, we are having to have people make a presentation and a portfolio to present at the competition,” said sophomore Nick Pande.
So far, competition only covers first going to regionals and then a statewide competition.
Since all of this is a new learning experience for the team members, they all have different impressions.
“This is the first year, so it is a new experience,” said Pande.
“It’s been kind of complicated. But I’ve gotten to meet new people and work together with them to accomplish something,” said senior Luis Ramirez.
“It’s the first year and it’s great. It’s helped me learn how to be able to deal with and solve problems. It’s pretty fun!” said Herrera. “It’s also going to be very interesting, because we do our robotics team through EAST, but there are some schools who have robotics teams who treat it like we treat football.”
Most of the students on the team are also very optimistic about what participating can do for their life after high school.
“This is one of those things that make resumés for college (and later jobs) look really good, especially for engineering courses,” said Pande.
“I plan to go into programming as a career, and this is something that I can do now that will really help me later on in life,” said Ramirez.
Ramirez isn’t the only one who knows this will help him later in life. Even if one doesn’t want a career in robotics, it looks good on college applications and resumes.