Most people are intimidated by the idea of robotics. Programming, wiring and building a machine from scratch can seem like a daunting task for those who are unfamiliar with the area. However, freshman Jimmy Xin, who joined the Robotics club this year, had an interest in robotics, and wanted to have the opportunity to learn new skills. The robotics club offers students of all grade levels an opportunity to learn and experiment, and encouraged new members to come and learn, regardless of experience.

“I am pretty new to the area of robotics as a whole,” Xin said. “I have been doing coding for a while, and coding has always stood out to me because it involves problem solving. I really like that, but the mechanical aspect of robotics is something I am really new to. I wanted to learn more about it.”

In the club, members are taught the basics of robotics, and can code and build their own creations. With these skills, the club creates machines to perform specific tasks, whether they are basic or complex. Later on, the club gets a topic to build for and enters their creation in a competition. Xin described one of the tasks that the club was learning how to execute.

“We do not get the topic for competition until around the Jan. 1. Right now, we are working on games to practice our building skills,” Xin said. “Today, we are building catapults for a friendly competition that the club is having. The prize is cookies.”

Although the club had fun with building, simply creating robots was not the only reason why Xin had decided to join robotics. He was interested in being able to develop his technical skills, for application in more aspects of his life.

“Just being able to make things from scratch is really cool,” Xin said. “Since I am new to this, I have never really made something out of metal or out of wood. It is nice to be able to build and get something to work.”

Xin also was motivated to join the club from other parts of his life, such as his family. Seeing other people that he was close to learn from robotics created a greater interest in the skill.

“I think robotics is useful because it teaches students how to do things hands on and it teaches them useful skills that they can use later on, whether they want to be an engineer or just want to fix their car.” Xin said. “One time my mom had that problem, and my sister could fix it since is is also in robotics.”

With his practice in a new skill, Xin hoped to be well rounded in all areas of robotics, and use the skills he learned from the robotics club to solve every day problems in his life.