The Robotics Club has witnessed success this year, earning multiple awards for their VEX Robotics Competition robot, winning 1st place at the HISD regional tournament and qualifying for the VEX World Championships in Anaheim, California from Apr. 23-26, 2014. Club president senior David Wu attributes the success of the club to the hard work of all its members.

“Robotics meets almost every day – from the first week of school, until the end of the VEX Worlds competition at the end of April,” Wu said. “We meet after school every day in the workshop, sometimes for 4 hours. It is the most hardcore club at Bellaire.”

According to Wu, it all pays off in the end. The team has qualified for the World-Championship for 2 years in a row. It is a club that offers something very unique, he said.

“From conception to completion of our bot, we expose our members to everything from design to programming to engineering,” Wu said. “We want the club to inspire the future members of Bellaire, and we want to give them real life, hands-on experience that you don’t get in the classroom.”

Robotics Club vice president senior Victoria Stuckey said she joined the club because she wanted to be an engineer. She wants to see the club continue to grow.

“I want this club to self-sustaining so that it can stay on its current track,” Stuckey said. “I want the focus to survive, even when new members come. ”

The club swept all the awards at the HISD regional competition as well as 1st place. There were three awards that would have qualified a team for the State Competition, and the team won all of them.

“We had a really good bot, but at state, that kind of bot does not hold up, so we completely rebuilt it from the ground up. The competition will be even harder at Worlds.”

At State, Stuckey’s well kept document of the team’s building process, also called an engineering notebook, won the team the design award which qualified them for Worlds, where they will be facing 419 other teams from countries like China, Japan and Israel.

With all their accomplishments aside, Wu said the club is still looking for new members. He encourages prospective members to give the Robotics Club a chance.

“We don’t just need engineers. We need people of all kinds – people who can help with fundraising, people who are graphic designers to design the logos and t-shirts. If you are interest at all, you should come by. Don’t worry about not knowing much. Every member starts off not knowing much at all, but by the end, things will turn out okay.”