The La Cañada Engineering Club, competing in its sixth FIRST world championship in Houston, brought home awards and valuable experiences from what club members depicted as an unforgettable event.
La Cañada High School senior Patrick Thuss told the Outlook Valley Sun that the club won a series of prestigious awards for its initiatives in e-waste and program sustainability, the biggest one being the FIRST Sustainability Award given to the club in Houston.
This was the club’s first time receiving the award, which includes two aspects of sustainability: team longevity and environmental consciousness, according to the FIRST website.
“The revised award criteria celebrates how these two areas can work together to help teams have a long-term positive impact on both their community and the environment,” reads the website.
The club hosts an annual e-waste collection event for the community to discard old TVs, printers, computers, vacuums and much more. This year, the club served more than 800 vehicles.
Founded in 1989, FIRST — the acronym which means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — is a nonprofit organization that runs robotic competitions around the world and prepares young people for the future through a suite of life-changing youth robotics programs that build skills, confidence and resilience.
The club also won the FIRST Impact Award at the Aerospace Valley Regional competition, which allowed them to advance to the world championship in Houston. Meanwhile, the club’s robot, “Crank Sinatra,” also placed in the top 10 at the Arizona East and the Aerospace Valley Regional, Thuss said.
“The overall experience was incredible,” said Thuss. “There were 600 competing teams at the competition and over 50,000 people in the building across all three levels of the robotics competitions. We met students from other countries and really got to experience robotics on the world stage.”
The experience was also valuable to the 28 students who attended on behalf of the club, where they got to see their hard work come together.
“The world championship competition is very important to us,” said Thuss. “It is our end goal each year. It’s the reason we work so hard to get the Impact Award through our community service and the reason we work hard to make a good robot is to go to Houston for worlds.
“The reason it is so important is because it allows students to not only experience the reward of their work, but it lets them see the robotics on a global level, which results in students wanting to participate more, grow and improve the club,” he added.
Club President Chloe Lee said the Houston competition is unlike any other.
“Houston is an experience that you can’t get anywhere because the competition that they host is a world-renowned competition for robotics, where kids of all ages, from elementary to high school and from all different countries, come together for a specific passion,” said Lee.
Lee added that competitions like this allow students to learn from others across the world.
“Everywhere you walk, you hear different languages, you see different types of people and you can talk to anybody there and learn something new. It’s just an eye-opening experience.”
She said that every year, the club gets a theme and a series of tasks that their robot needs to complete. This year, the club’s robot was challenged to shoot a paper plane and stack pixels, among other tasks.
Thuss reflected on the environment, where students got to embrace one of the main core beliefs of the FIRST nonprofit, which is cooperation.
“Everyone wants each other to succeed, so teams are excited for each other and supportive,” said Thuss. “When you get tens of thousands of people in a convention center who all want each other to succeed in a competition, it makes an atmosphere that is more exciting and supportive than any other.”
Lee said the club has an open-door policy and encourages students — not only from LCHS but from other schools and students who are home-schooled — to come and explore the many opportunities the club has to offer.
To learn more about the La Cañada Engineering Club, visit lacanadaengineeringclub.org. To learn more about FIRST, visit firstinspires.org.
First published in the May 9 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
