Santana Robotics Teams wins Las Vegas Regionals!

Congratulations to Santana High School’s Robotics Team 3965, who is on their way to the World Championship in Houston, Texas after winning the Las Vegas Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. This will be the team’s third appearance at the World Championship competition since forming in 2012.

At the Regional match in Las Vegas on March 21 – 24, The Sultans Team 3965 initially struggled with their alliances and actually lost their first days matches. As the team rallied and reorganized, they rebuilt some critical pieces of the robot and adjusted the programming, the team started winning. Our team went from 43rd place on Friday to 28th place on Saturday at the end of qualifications.

When the qualifications ended on Saturday, the top 8 teams came up to pick their alliances. Due to our ability to climb the tower and quickly move objects where they needed to go on the field, Sultans Robotics Team 3965 was chosen by Falcon Robotics (the third ranked team), along with the High Rollers to compete in the finals. Our alliance swept the finals, with no losses and ultimately took first place! To watch the videos of the final matches, please go to https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClWVwipD9cfZidaNzm-WDhQ.

The team is under the guidance of Academic Advisor Teresa Stanley, and head Mentors/Engineers Vern Schad, Steve Saxer and Dana Ford. The team leaders are extremely proud of the students who work very professionally while interacting with judges, during competing, while scouting and networking with other teams.

The students, with the help of these mentors and the support of the sponsors have just six weeks to design, fabricate and program a robot to perform specific tasks at a competitive level. In addition to building a robot, the team must raise funds through writing grants, community outreaches, making presentations, and utilizing social media to expand the team’s brand as to align with the game theme.

The team operates out of a mentor’s garage. During the build season the team meets 3-4 times a week and every weekend. The teams 15 members are very active students. These students also participate in various Santana sports which include; Water Polo, La Crosse, Volleyball, Swim, Football, Soccer, Tennis and Basketball as well as a variety of campus clubs, ASB and the Academic League. Seniors from our team have been accepted to UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cal Poly and other prestigious schools.

The Santana club has been working hard since the kick off presentation of this year’s game in January. The competition called Power Up uses alliances of three to complete tasks to earn points. Multiple matches are played until they get to the top 8 teams, who then form alliances for the finals. Learn more about First Robotics Competitions at firstinspires.org.

The students grow through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) within the team and the community as well. The team members learn problem-solving skills, trouble shooting, team building and communication skills as they form alliances with other students from teams around the world. FIRST Robotics (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was started 25 years ago by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway.

FIRST Robotics has grown over the years to over 400,000 participating students from over 80 countries. There are over 200 scholarship providers and 25 million dollars in scholarships available to students who participate in FIRST.

We wish the Santana Sultan Robotics Team 3965 luck as they travel to Houston on April 18th to compete in the First Robotics World Competition. For more information or to sponsor our team please contact Mentor Karen Schad at 619-258-6322.