November 2024
By Dominic Cerda and Angel De Blas, Staff Reporters
This year in KAC a new Robotics team, Luna, was founded by coach and math teacher Ruben Perez and two senior students, which has inspired new members to join Robotics.
After Luna’s first meet, team member and KAC 12th-grader Vania Ornelas said, “Off the bat I think I can say being underestimated in the field- despite not necessarily being the most competitive team quite yet, I think that both our allies and opponents sort of looked down on us.”
“On a technical note,” she said, “we mainly struggled with our slider snapping or giving out-for growth i can definitely say that I’m proud of all of my members maintaining a confident attitude throughout the meet. I know how hard it is to keep your composure when your team isn’t doing so well but my members tried their best, and made sure that their effort showed in the field we had a working robot that drove all 5 matches.”
Ornelas continued, “That was honestly enough for me to be incredulous, especially being a founding team with a completely new roster of members.”
Connecting with those struggles we asked her what’s their next plan and how they as a team overcame that or learned from their struggles. “We’re going to upgrade to a belt slider as soon as we can order one,” she said, “but we’re working hard with what we have right now despite the constant issues. We fix the slider every time it breaks and just hope for the best.
Finally we asked what Ornelas has learned from leading her first team. “I’ve mainly learned how important it is to keep a growth mindset,” she responded. “While it’s important to see flaws and point them out, it’s also just as important to learn from them. I used to not be as involved with the technical side of robotics, being a historian for two years, but I realized that being a manager means to step up and take the lead- even if it isn’t something I’m fully well versed in.”
With this new team their goal is to inspire more younger participants in order to give them an opportunity, and with this it shows us how it actually is possible that anyone can join robotics. You can support this team by their Instagram: @Luna.25662
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