The Striking Vikings Begin Competition Season
November 13, 2018
The Downey High School Robotics Team, known as The Striking Vikings, kicked off their season on Oct. 20 at a community service event to celebrate Halloween. The team showcased their robot that took six weeks to build and dressed to reflect Disney’s Wall-E for Halloween. The team also showcased a robot that projected candy to guests at the event.
Senior Evan Saracay recalls his memories from the event and some of the events that can be expected at the showcases themself.
“The most exciting thing is seeing your work being tested,” Saracay says. “You’ve been working on this thing for six weeks and you’re not sure if it’s going to work or not. Sometimes things do break but it’s still a fun experience seeing your creation moving around.”
The team can be found working into late hours of the night in order to make sure a deadline can be reached. The end goal for students on this team is to be able to present their best work for future events.
Senior Simon Choo recalls the life lessons that this program has taught him and how he can apply them to other areas of his life.
“The thing I learn in robotics is basically trial and error,” Choo said. “There are problems that arise and it’s our job to figure out a way to fix it. I can apply these things to school and basically education.”
Malena Merlos,12, invites those students interested in pursuing robotics to visit them and to come get acquainted with what they do.
“We welcome everyone,” Merlos said. “Whoever wants to come and has an interest in robotics we’re very welcoming and will get them started on robots or whatever they want to do.”
This event was done to promote the engineering department at Downey High School. The team will continue to work on their robots and invite students that are interested to contact them for more information. The team meets in room D-21 with advisor Mr. Yamasaki Wednesdays after school.
