Hastings High School has recently welcomed a new club: the Robotics Club, nicknamed the Bionic Buzzers! by founders Sofia Eliasi and Jacob Levan, the club was created because Eliasi and Levan felt that there was a lack of programs and activities geared towards engineering at HHS. Additionally, the co-founders “realized that a lot of [their] friends had scattered engineering talents, and [they] wanted to create a space where [they] could all come together and put those skills to use.” Sofia also shared that, “Especially as a girl, I’ve often felt excluded from this kind of thing. But we really encourage everyone to join, even if they don’t think they can do engineering. It’s all about breaking down those mental barriers and just giving it a try.” Both co-founders also wanted to create a bigger STEM community in the high school and bring HHS’s engineering and STEM talents together to work as a team to create functioning and impressive robots, while getting the opportunity to compete.
The club’s current focus is to build a functioning robot for the First Robotics Competition (FRC), an international event where students gain the opportunity to design, build, and program a functioning robot. This current competition is “reef scape.” Sofia described it as “underwater themed” with a focus on capturing coral and algae. Something unique about this competition is that they get to meet and collaborate with other teams. Jacob and Sofia stated that their main goals for this competition wasn’t necessarily to win but rather to create a robot that drives and passes competition inspection, while, most importantly, having fun.
Mr. Hills and Ms. Gagliardi are the advisers of the Robotics Club. Mr. Hills described how the club is divided into three separate components: an electrical team, a mechanical team, and a programming team. The electrical team is responsible for wiring the motors, the mechanical team actually builds the robot, and the programming team is tasked with the coding to ensure the robot can complete its tasks. Additionally, there are social media managers that help generate publicity for the club.
When asked about long term goals for the club, Jacob stated, “We want to see the robotics club grow, both in terms of membership and funding. It would be amazing to come back in 10 years and see this club become a big, established part of our school’s STEM community.” Similarly, Mr. Hills hopes that the team continues for many years and that they are eventually able to compete at a higher level.
Both Levan and Eliasi encourage others to join, even if they don’t know much about engineering. They stated that the club is a “good way to break that mental barrier” of not being able to do something. Ms. Gagliardi remarks on how she “likes all the ideas that the kids have and them coming together and actually working [through their roadblocks]” on the way to building a successful robot. The Robotics Club’s advisors and founders hope the club will continue to thrive and be a great place for students to learn about engineering and work together to create successful robots.
Make sure to check out their Instagram to see their updates and progress!
@hastingsroboticsteam
