(April 2, 2013) — “Robotics is like a whole new experience,” said sophomore Cynthia Mirzaie. “It makes me feel like I’m important and that I can do stuff I normally wouldn’t have known how to do.”

The dedication and the amount of hard work Mirzaie and the entire robotics team put into their craft has seemed to pay off, since the team was recently placed in the semifinals for the Los Angeles Regional in Long Beach that took place from March 21-23, and earned the Innovation In Control Award sponsored by Rockwell Automation.

In the end, the team placed 6th out of 65 teams at Long Beach.The team also placed second at the Inland Empire Regional, which took place from March 28-30 in San Bernardino. The team and their chief advisor David Black have been preparing for the competition for many months.

According to Mirzaie, dividing the teams into individual groups, each having a focus on a specific function of the robot, helped the group maintain organization and work more efficiently. “We have learned a lot of valuable lessons from our experiences, and I think we can still improve,” Mirzaei said.

“The competitions are a lot of fun, you meet a lot of different people, and it is always enlightening.” The process of making a robot and the hard work the students do to achieve their goals is something the team is exceptionally proud of. “We start by brainstorming, and people are divided into different groups, such as the priming group, the floor pick-up group, and the shooter group,” said Mirzaie.

“We come up with the model, and then we start by making the robot and put it together.” To be a part of the team, students need to take great interest and have great determination. “I’ve always been interested in robotics, even as a kid, so it seemed like a natural thing to join the team,” said freshman Shay Sackett. “We’re a pretty good team, I mean we did place 6th out of 65 teams [in Long Beach], and I think that says a lot about our hard work and skills.” Devoting so much time to the team has made the members appreciate it more and become more like a family.

“Being part of this team is pretty important and is always fun working together and accomplishing pretty amazing things,” Sackett said. “To improve and prepare for future competitions we sometimes spend entire days working on our robot, driving it and coming up with more strategies.”