Our mission is to spread the awareness of the engineering design fields to demonstrate how mathematics and science applies to real-life situations and to extend the reach of FIRST, an organization dedicated to inspire young individuals to pursue careers in science and technology, to all areas of the Las Vegas Valley. Our team hosts the local LEGO League competition, which is an elementary version of our team.
Our team began competing in the FIRST robotics competitions in 2002. As the success of our team grew so did the interest in the field of engineering. We have had six graduating classes of seniors who have gone off to college to study in science and technology related fields, but our success has really shown when 2008’s graduating team members all went onto college and are all currently studying engineering.
Our students have access to state of the art machining equipment. Nearly all parts of the robot are designed by students and machined on campus using a 24” travel CNC Mill and a Lathe with a DRO digital read out. This knowledge makes our students very competitive once they go to college and some have even received jobs at machining companies while going to school.
In order to build a competitive robot the most important principal is to start with a solid design. We use Solidworks® 3D software in order design our robots. The software allows the students to get a better visual representation of what they will be constructing and it also allows the student to add densities for the materials they are using in order to get a weight of their design.
In order to service this new interest and all of the new students in 2005 the advisors of the team began teaching an introduction to robotics to nearly 60 students at our school. The following year we added a second year course and by that time we were educating nearly 100 students at our school. The first year robotics class teaches the fundamentals of design, pneumatics, electronics, gear ratios, and problem solving. The second year course uses those fundamentals to build large scale robots in order to compete in the FIRST robotics competition.

Nothing would be possible without the help of our sponsors and school administration. These individuals are committed to our team and our success because they know that the FIRST robotics competition not only allows our students to compete, but learn the principles of engineering. Furthermore, our students have learned what it means to be philanthropist and how important it is to give back to the community.