TUCSON, Ariz. -- The competitive spirit was in full swing at Sahuaro High School for the VEX Robotics tournament. Students coming from as far as New Mexico to show off their skills.
One team was from Sahuaro High School and made up of all girls.
Alex Thwaits is a senior and said she never thought she would see robotics get this big in Tucson.
“I’m excited for the turnout. This is the biggest Robotics competition that Tucson’s ever had,” she said.
Thwaits says many hours went into perfecting her team’s robot for the VEX competition.
“We actually just rebuilt our whole robot for this competition. So we’ve made these conveyor belt arms that just come out now when they were previously just stationary,” Thwaits told KGUN9.
The goal of the game-- Tower Takeover-- is to rack up the most points in a match by scoring cubes in goals and placing cubes in towers.
Each cube is worth one point if scored in a goal zone...But if a team places a cube in a tower, that color cube is now worth an extra point.
“It’s kind of intimidating to be like the only all girls team that’s at the competitions normally, but I mean, as long as you have a good robot, I normally don’t let it phase me,” Thwaits added.
She says being a part of this team inspired her to pursue mechanical engineering and engineering management at the University of Arizona in the fall.
“I like being hands on and building the projects and seeing the trial and error and really like be able to watch your solutions come to life,” Thwaits told KGUN9.
However, she says she couldn’t have done it without the guidance of her teacher and coach Andrew Christian.
“Mr. Christian really convinced a lot of these schools to get VEX robotics so it’s really nice to see all the work he put in convincing people it was worth it and like they’re actually all here now because they have the program,” She added.
When KGUN9 asked Mr. Christian what he thought of the girls, he said he could not be more pleased with their performance.
“I am super proud to see these girls do as well as they have,” said Mr. Christian.
Thwaits says this experience has had a great impact on her life and hopes more people, especially women, get involved in robotics.
“I encourage women to continue going into STEM because it has really opened a lot of doors for me,” she added.
Mr. Christian tells KGUN9 his goal is to continue to recruit more robotics teams to put Tucson on the robotics map.
For more information on how you or your school can get involved, you can email Mr Christian directly at andrew.christian@tusd1.org
