Students in ViperBots are in preparation for the upcoming 2018-19 season. With the first competition of the year on Nov. 10, the teams are spending most of their time designing and building their robots.

Team members spend everyday during and after school hours prototyping and designing their team robot. In addition, other students are put in charge of creating a master schedule to stay timely and organized.

“I’m excited for the upcoming competitions to see the designs that each team has to come up with,” freshman member Izzy Talu said. “I’m also excited to see how our robot and Outreach places us in the competition.”

Talu is new to ViperBots and is part of the marketing team. She also helps out with her team’s engineering notebook which recounts both the struggles and successes of the season. This way, the teams can easily view what worked and what didn’t work for them in order to improve and alter things.

“(The marketing team) gives me the responsibility of arranging community outreach which is giving back to the community, and company outreach, which is receiving mentorship from companies,” Talu said.

The Outreach team is responsible for contacting real-world companies and receiving mentorship from them. Team members on Outreach contribute to ViperBots by collaborating with these companies and receiving helpful insight on designing and building their robots.

“I have been contributing to my team by contacting local businesses like Dell, AMD, and National Instruments,” Talu said. “I also contact schools and offer them STEM related activities and programs that they could do or receive.”

The team as a whole has a primary focus to develop and educate people who want to be future leaders and entrepreneurs.  Members say that ViperBots helps students learn and obtain the social and collaboration skills needed in life.

“Robotics will definitely benefit me in the future because I know I will use those skills in college and future jobs,” Talu said. “I really think I made the right choice by being in Robotics. It’s very exciting and it’s my way of relaxing from the stresses of school.”