Few high school programs are afforded the opportunity for international exposure. This year, the Robotics Club receive such an opportunity as they journeyed to St. Louis, Missouri, to compete against the top robotics teams from each state and various countries.
Nita Madra, robotics staff advisor since 2005, said that “the energy there; it’s just an international experience.” The competition featured teams from China, the Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Romania, and India, to name a few.
She said she believes the team learned a lot from the experience. She compared it to “getting out of the bubble,” saying, “There’s so much more out there in science and technology and if we hadn’t gotten out and experienced it, we’d still think we were the best.”
Senior Sammie Wang described how eye-opening the competition was. “We came up with a system to lift the crate 8 feet; there were other teams that could lift it 16-20 feet. It was just really cool to see how they built their robot and their different ideas and how they came up with solutions,” she said
Campo placed 25th out of 68 teams. Though slightly disappointed, the team is still satisfied just to have had the opportunity.
“I feel like we placed exactly where we should be,” Wang said. “Just getting to world is an achievement on its own.”
Fellow senior Maks Tsvetkov held the same view. “We were hoping for a little better but it was a fun experience so that’s what really important,” he explained.
