ISA Club Profile: Engineering Club
By Andrea Stoimenova
The Engineering Club welcomes middle and high school students to explore robotics, coding, and team-based engineering challenges. In a world where technology drives progress, the club offers a platform to stay at the forefront of innovation and unite diverse perspectives through the universal language of science.
What is the Engineering Club about?
Every Monday, from 15:45 to 17:00 in room 064, the Engineering Club opens its doors to anyone eager to explore the design, build and programming involved within the creation of robots.Whether you're a beginner or experienced in coding, mechanics, or design, the club offers roles for everyone. In addition to technical skills, students can also contribute through graphic design and marketing, helping to promote the club and its activities.
The club’s focus is on designing, building, and programming robots to compete in the “INTO THE DEEP” tournament by the First Tech Challenge (FTC, Robotics Organization). Members work collaboratively to apply skills in mechanical design, coding, and project management. Guided by experienced peers and mentors, such as seniors, previous club members and science teachers like Mr. Merdes and design teachers like Mr. Chong. Students learn valuable STEM principles such as mechanical design, coding, electronics and teamwork through the experience gained within the club.
Achievements and Opportunities
The aim of the club is to design a functioning robot by a set deadline, using a starter kit, competition rule book, guiding videos, teamwork, split management upon completion of the arm, body, base, and different parts of the robot. The team designs a robot that can execute specific tasks, aligning with the robotic tournament expectations. Every year, the team adapts to new objectives and challenges as outlined by the robotics tournaments, as rules and design expectations differ by year. This year’s 24-25 tech challenge will be centered around the theme of underwater exploration, with the goal of designing a robot capable of navigating a terrain, collecting and delivering game pieces to specific targets and completing tasks that simulate a deep-sea mission. With this information, the team is aiming to win the "INTO THE DEEP" competition, where they will play against other teams in a series of matches that are evaluated according to the robot's performance, innovative design, and programming capabilities.
What makes the Engineering Club unique?
Wide range of skills, where iff technical skills are not of interest to you, advertisement can be the primary reason for your participation.
No experience needed! The club welcomes all students with an interest in learning in the science field.
Competitive Edge, where the Engineering Club offers opportunities to participate in various robotics competitions. Whether it’s a race, obstacle course, or task-based challenge, you’ll get the chance to see your creation in action and compete against other teams to see whose robot is most effective.
How to join?
Simply show up on Mondays at Room 064, or email isaengineeringclub24@gmail.com for more details. Don’t hesitate, whether you're passionate about robotics or simply curious, the Engineering Club offers a valuable opportunity to explore engineering, technology, and innovation that can drive your future careers and interests.
Feel free to explore the robotics organization - FIRST Tech Challenge https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc
