Photo Courtesy Alyssa Beas
A pair of UTRGV engineering students started a robotics team of high schoolers to pass on the knowledge they have gained in their college courses.
Freshmen mechanical engineering students Diego Garza and Alyssa Beas coach Unity Robotics. There are currently five members from grades ninth through 12th from the Mission Consolidated Independent School District and McAllen Independent School District.
Beas explained their team name was inspired by the students with different backgrounds and school districts.
“It’s just all of us coming together from different parts, and each having different interests and different things about themselves that just make them so unique,” she said. “And we’ve all come together as a united front.”
At the high school level, there are no engineering classes offered, but Beas said that she has seen growth in the students’ knowledge.
“It’s like you see a light bulb every time the student learns something new or every time they kind of realize that what they’re doing matters and what they’re doing is, like, going to help them in the future,” she said.
According to firstinspires.org, FIRST is a global nonprofit organization that challenges participants to fundraise, build, research, and design to compete against other robotics teams.
The pair both competed in FIRST and have seen how impactful the robotics program has been on them. They want to use their knowledge to teach their students elements of engineering they miss out on.
“FIRST taught me absolutely everything it could with engineering, like manufacturing parts, using heavy machinery, building, CADing, using the engineering design process, coding,” Garza said. “So, seeing that translate towards the kids that we are now coaching, it’s a great thing.”
Beas explained grants and sponsorships help finance their team.
“We got our first sponsorship from a local business, RGV Spray On Bedliners, and they sponsored our registration fee and our first parts kit,” she said. “But other than that, we’re doing fundraisers to keep up with how expensive they can be, and just applying to grants and applying to sponsorships.”
Garza said oftentimes students may feel discouraged to join a robotics team because they have no experience and think they won’t make an impact on the team. He said that no experience is needed to join Unity Robotics.
“Every student that has joined so far [has] no experience with any type of robotics or STEM,” he said. “And right now, they’re doing fantastic learning how to build, learning all the basics.”
Unity Robotics is looking for more high school students to join their team. For more information, visit their Instagram @unity.robotics.
The team will kick off the season by competing in the FIRST Tech Challenge League Meet on Oct. 26 at South Texas Independent School District World Scholars in Edinburg.
This is Victoria Gonzalez for Vaquero Radio.
