Mater Dei’s Robotics Club
April 4, 2016
Right next to the library, under the stairs, lies a very interesting club … the Robotics Club.
Consisting of about 20 members, the Robotics Club revolves around students coming together to work and create a functional robot. The club’s focus is to learn about mechanical and computer skills and those interested in careers in that field.
“We have grown every year in student size and in our robot complexity,” said Robotics instructor Jim Reynolds, “so the fact that we get experience in designing a more complicated robot, and also with the software and getting to do more with our robot, has always advanced. And so we have goals for that.”
In the club there are four main categories for club members: mechanical, electrical, programming and business. Mechanical is in charge of building the robot. Electrical handles the wiring involved with the robot. Programming deals with commands for the robot, and business is in charge of getting sponsors and funds for the club.
“I learned how to [use] several programs, like Autocast, Solidworks, Inventor, [and] Fusion 360. I’m mainly on the computer and design team, so I design the robot, ” said sophomore Louis Dibernardo.
Meetings for the club are usually twice a week from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. The club also meets once during the weekend from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. And for all those with a competitive side, the robotics club even has a competition.
“This year we have a competition in Long Beach and also Las Vegas,” said junior Kevin Viers. “In previous years we’ve done one of the two but neither both of them. So it’s kinda cool that we do both.”
The robotics competition is bound to to be tough with the variety of teams from different schools competing for the title of robotics champion.
“Only the top eight teams out of about sixty robots make the playoffs, and so we were in that group last year and we made it to the first round of the playoffs, so we were pretty happy about that. It was fun and exciting.” said Reynolds.
From its educational approach to it’s overall enriching experience, the Robotics Club is nothing bot fun.
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