On January 26, the two UC High Robotics Teams will be coming together to host their first tournament, to spread science, technology, engineering and mathematics [STEM] ideals across the UC High campus.

   The Robotics Club always finds ways to spread STEM around the community. According to Junior Michael Smith, “The purpose of the robotics club is to show others how STEM and robotics intersect.” 

   Senior Catalina Arreola said, “The Robotics Club is a way of bringing people together to share their love of STEM.”

   This will be the first competition the school has ever hosted. Junior Mikaela Norum mentioned, “It is an exciting new experience.” 

   Arreola added, “The school hosting the competition is convenient and it is also great publicity for the club.”

  “We are one club, but two teams,” said Smith. For this competition, these two teams will come together to collaborate — the Centurion Robotics Team and the UCHS Team.

   “The other team currently brings a lot to the table and they are really good at what they do. It is always nice having a team that is accompanying us and, if anything happens, we always cheer each other on,” said Arreola.

   With both the UCHS Team and the Centurion Robotics Team, in total there are 28 students participating. Arreola and Smith mentioned that the more people working together to participate in this competition, the more diverse the ideas will be.

  “One goal for the competition is to make it to regionals,” said Norum. Smith added, “Another goal would be to perform our best as well as make the school proud.”

   This competition is a new opportunity for the Robotics Club. Smith explained that this competition is a way of displaying and testing skills by standing up to other schools.

   “In this competition, improvement is the key,” stated Arreola. 

   Smith noted, “Being confident and being proud will help us do well. Competitions are a way of showing our progression overtime.”

    “We have been preparing for this competition since September. We are rounding up volunteers and brainstorming what we want to sell and what music to have at the competition,” said Smith.

   “We prepare for competitions by looking at how we did on the last one and we revise whatever didn’t work out,” said Norum. 

   “We are also fine tuning our programming so we can do our best. We are making the hardware of our robot more reliable and user friendly,” said Smith.

   Arreola said, “I love meeting new people at every competition.” 

   Smith added, “During competitions there are a lot of issues that arise, so it is interesting to complete a match and rush the robot back to the pit area to quickly fix something.”