The STEM Club is developing a robotics program at SJHHS.

STEM Club, headed by senior Noah Villar and sophomore Ashlynn Mathews, works to grow the passion and knowledge of the stem field at the school. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

“All the fields of STEM are currently on the rise right now, and we just want to get people in involved and essentially just feel that love for science, technology, engineering and math,” said Villar.

In the past years, the STEM club has had a racing team. However, this year, according to Mathews, there was not enough demand for a racing team, so the club has set their mission to robotics instead.

They have partnered with Vex Robotics and will participate in their high level competitions meant for high school and college students. Vex is an international company that creates curriculum and competitions for teachers and students with the hope of diversifying the STEM field.

The club will have to create a robot that can perform the task  of grabbing and stacking cones set up in a 12’ by 12’ box.They will have to design the main physical robot and a virtual robot  to compete in both online and in person competitions.

The team is looking for a diverse range of members. According to Villar, “there are so many aspects of the team that don’t even have to do with math. I know a lot of people say ‘I don’t want to do any programming or building or weird math stuff. I’m not really into this kind of stuff,’ but there is actually an artistic aspect of the competition that requires a lot of creativity and no math.”

Building a robot can be expensive, so the club applied for and received grants from Vex itself and other resources. Mathews just won a grant from Vex for Women in Stem called “Girl Powered.”

This program of Vex works to support women in the STEM field and encourage girls to participate by “redefining the face of STEM,” according to their website. SJHHS’s robotics team will receive two kits for building, one super building kit, and waived competition fees.

The kits contain items that have to be cut down and bolted into place. This will make the task much more advanced than what the team would have to build if they were competing at the lower level, which has premade pieces to just snap together.

The adaptability of the high school level kits will allow students to do what they want, only limiting them “by their imagination (and [their] budget) as far as what they can create,” according to Mark Groothius, a physics teacher and advisor for the robotics team.

There is no need for experience to join the team, although “[they] always love having people with prior experience,” according to Villar. Even Villar himself will be building a robot for the first time.

The club will be relying on those with experience, like Mathews and Groothius, who ran the robotics program through Vex at Aliso Viejo Middle School. They will also have other advisors to help them with the process, including physics teacher Daniel Humphreys and David Azcarraga, a parent advisor with experience at the high school level of the competition.

Groothius is excited for all the opportunities and benefits the club can experience through VEX and the robotics experience at a high school level.

“My hope for the robotics team is to get them to realize that through hard work and collaboration, they are capable of making something that performs a task well.  With a little luck, we can qualify for the following on levels of competition, but actually making the robot work while learning to working together is the more important lesson” Groothius said.

Follow The Express for more updates on the successes of the team as the school year progresses.