Victory Early College High School Team Wins 3rd in USTEM Space Center Houston’s Robotics Challenge

Disponible en: Español

The team from [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]Victory Early College High School took part in the USTEM® Space Center Houston Robotics Competition earlier this spring. This is the first time a team from the campus competed in the Mars Challenge. The rookie team brought home third place.

In the competition, teams explore next generation robotics on Mars. They undertake missions that are essential for survival on the Red Planet. Teams develop their crew, develop a communication station, launch satellites into orbit, secure power supplies and even save a robot that needs help.

The mission of the competition is to improve STEM education. Organizers also seek to increase students’ interest in STEM fields. The acronym stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The USTEM® – SCRC Innovation and Inventions Contest Mars Challenge had teams create and develop a unique robotic invention or innovation. The project had to solve a problem or improve an existing mechanism or product. Each team had to use the robotic invention or innovation during a Mars exploration and settlement project. They could also choose a project from the LEGO education curriculum.

The student teams had to approach their problem as a real team of engineers. They had to work together to solve a problem using the Engineering Design Process (EDP). This is a particular course of action and sequence of operations intended to achieve a result or produce an outcome.

Engineering Design Process

[ul class=”list list-search”] [li]Research[/li] [li]Plan [/li][/ul]

[ul class=”list list-search”] [li]Prototype[/li] [li]Document & Test[/li][/ul]

[ul class=”list list-search”] [li]Commercialize[/li] [/ul]

Each team had to keep an engineering notebook for every time it met. The notebook had to describe each step of the EDP that each team took in the creation of the mechanism or product. This documentation formed part of the judging criteria. For each challenge the teams earned achievement badges. Each badge was set at a different level so that teams would know how well they did. The teams could complete as many missions as they wanted and even try each mission more than once. But every team had to follow the rules of the competition.

The coaches could teach team members new skills and handle logistics for the team. They could also ask questions to get the team members thinking and to remind students of the rules. But each team’s robot and project had to be the work of the students. Team members had to make all the decisions and do all the work.

It is impressive the novice team from Victory Early College High School placed third. Even though the team had no previous experience, the team had to compete in Advanced Level. This year’s team had many juniors. They will have a chance to use what they learned from this year’s event to improve their skills and to give the team a competitive edge next year.

Victory Early College High School Robotics Team

Keaton Boudreaux
Cynthia Cisneros
Allen Fellers
Bao Hoang
Nicole Magpantay
Richard Paredes
Kevin Quintana-Rivera
Alfredo Rodríguez
José Tello

Lyn del Monte-Onato is proud of the team. She serves as a physics teacher at the campus and coaches the robotics team.

“I am very proud of the team,” del Monte-Onato said. “The students work hard to develop their skills and understanding of concepts. Their dedication paid off big. It was amazing for the team to place third on their first robotics competition. Everyone at Victory Early College High School is proud of what they accomplished.“

The dedicated teacher wants the community to know she is raising funds. She wants to buy more robotics kits and software.

“I am asking the community to help me raise funds,” del Monte-Onato said. “I want to buy extra robotics kits and software. The extra kits and software won’t just be for competition. I want to build the robotics program into an extracurricular activity at the campus. This will help expose more of our students to STEM careers.“

The Space Center Houston Robotics Challenge is a middle and high school robotics competition. Organizers use the LEGO brand Mindstorms robotic platform. [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]Urban STEM and [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]Space Center Houston presented the competition.