[image 1]The MAKbots robotics team was founded four years ago by three 10 year olds. Their coach, Joe Li or Coach Joe, also an assistant manager at Toyota, was a robotics enthusiast and a robotics team coach at a local high school, but the team also needed some more help to lead it to victory.
They recruited Dr. Qiaoying “Joy” Zhou (Coach Joy), an associate professor at the Mathematics and Engineering Department of Northwest Vista College. Bringing on Coach Joy allowed Coach Joe to focus on the competition strategy, robot design and robot programming.
The team successfully competed at the First Lego League's Alamo Regionals and advanced to the national level twice. With the accumulation of experience and maturity of team members, they joined the First Tech Challenge (FTC), a competition designed for students in grades 8-12.
[image 2]This season, team MAKbots participated in the North San Antonio FTC League. In the final competition, MAKbots met their toughest competitor. Miraculously, team MAKbots was able to score in the highest basket in the last round, bringing their alliance to a victory, and an advancement to the regional championship as the top scoring team from North San Antonio FTC league in February. The team also received four awards from judges during the competition.
Kudos also goes to:
- NVC Saturday Children’s Enrichment Program where some of the team members earned certificates at the robotics classes;
- NVC Workforce's Dr. John Grillo, who helped support a community holiday concert at HEB Central Market, in which MAKBots performed;
- NVC Workforce's Pat Fontenot, who helped do mock interviews for the team as an experienced FTC judge at Super Regional Championships; and
- NVC IT's Felix Salinas, who volunteered as a judge at the League Championship recently.
If you would like to know more about MAKbots and FTC, contact Dr. Zhou.