opportunities and inspiration.” — Robotics coach Asther Reyes power award-winning robotics

cording to the Texas Tech University website that sponsors the event.

During the competition at Lubbock High School, Team 1 from Lincoln Middle School in Port Arthur placed first in Robotics

Performance, Team 4 from Thomas Jefferson Middle placed first in the Young Engineers Video Award, while Team 3 from Thomas Jefferson Middle earned fourth place in Robotics Performance and Team 2 from Lincoln Middle earned sixth place in Robotics Performance.

“It is a legendary feat to make it through the competition as a novice in the field of robotics,” says robotics coach Asther Reyes. “This triumph will inspire other students to see opportunities and inspiration.”

According to the district, it’s the first time they have had a robotics team at the middle school level, which currently has 14 members.

“This team is an outgrowth of the Brilliance Academy training last summer 2022, which is a STEM Academy that seeks STEM enthusiasts in the field of robotics, drones, engineering and other STEM related endeavors,” Reyes said.

Robotics teams work together to design, build, code and drive com- petition robots.

“The purpose of the robotics teams is to provide opportunities for students to explore and be involved in STEAM,” says Cynthia Quejado, robotics coach. “Being on a robotics team allowed them to plan and build robots according to the needed tasks, think critically via programming, troubleshooting when tasks go wrong and work with calculations to accurately program the robot to perfect a task.”

The Gear competition, according to Reyes, is an annual robotics challenge designed around a story that motivates the need for autonomous robots.

“That is a robot operating in Antarctica, constructing a moon post, or performing surgery,” Reyes says. “To solve the challenge, students learn engineering skills through a teaming exercise in designing, building, programming, testing and troubleshooting their wheeled LEGO robots.”

Students are learning many valuable skills while collaborating to complete the task at hand.

“Personally, I’ve learned how to work in a team since I prefer to work alone in most of my projects,” said Hipolito. “I have also learned a little more about coding and designing pieces from scratch and memory.”

The experiences will take these students well beyond the classroom.

“I can learn valuable skills that I will need for my life and career in the future that involve a clear and promising path,” Moreno said. “I also learned to work with people I may disagree with or argue with, as well as experience working in a rushed and tense environment.”

Coaches hope the awards inspires every student in the district to pursue careers related to STEAM.

“The competition was a clear manifestation that the students of Port Arthur ISD have the potential to become engineers, scientists, programmers and be part of the futuristic AI world,” robotics coach Rizza Catbagan said.

Additional coaches for the robotics team sponsored by Chevron Phillips include Meliton Reyes Jr., Jundelyn Villareal and Sarge Charon.

— By Chrissie Mouton