Immokalee High team set for robotics state championships Friday in Tampa

It has been almost two years since Immokalee High senior Kristian Trevino, 18, traded his baseball glove for a robot controller, but he has never looked back.

“We’re not doing suicides (physical conditioning drills) or running around the field here at robotics, but we’re using our minds twenty-four seven,” he said.

The former second baseman and current captain of the Immokalee High robotics team has helped lead his team to the VEX Robotics state championships that will take place Friday in Tampa.

The team, only in its second year, has qualified two robots: Megazord and Dragonzord, named after the forces made famous by the "Power Rangers" TV show. Each robot is built and controlled by a team of three students.

The young engineers have been meeting for hours each day after class since the start of the school year. One night they stayed so late the janitor almost locked them in.

“They average 20 to 25 hours per week working on these robots, and they spend their free time watching videos of other robots,” said Fred Rimmler, an engineering teacher and robotics coach at Immokalee. “They’ve blown me away.”

The bots will compete as separate teams against 55 others at the Florida Fairgrounds for the title of state champion and a chance to qualify for the world competition in Louisville, Kentucky, in April.

The bots will enter a 12-foot-by-12-foot playing field, split down the middle, and compete to see how many toy stars and cubes each can throw over to the other side within the allotted two minutes.

The robots, driven by a team member through a game controller, can win bonus points for climbing onto a corner post and for driving autonomously.

Students gain more than just knowledge about mechanics — the games are social. After the first round, teams pair up with each other to compete in groups of three.

“You have to be very strategic,” Rimmler said. "You have to have a good understanding of the engineering and design side of things, but you also have to know how to make friends."

Rimmler and his students said it was a difficult task to find partners at first, but after winning the regional competition in Miami, other teams have begun seeking them out to ask whether they’d be willing to join forces.

“At the beginning of the year, I didn’t think this was going to happen, but now our robot’s at a whole new level,” said Damian Gonzalez-Perez, 17, the captain and driver of Megazord.

The engineering masterpiece has gone through five full redesigns since the start of the year.

“We’ve built a really aggressive offensive robot. Nobody knew us before, but now when we go to other cities to compete, we’re known as Immokalee, and it’s a prideful thing.”

For Jennifer Villa, 18, the only girl on the team, the male-dominated competitions have taught her to take initiative. She said she used to feel stigmatized by boys who assumed she wasn’t as smart as they were.

“The girls are always seen as the pretty ones and the dainty ones.” she said. “I’ve learned to put myself out there more. My team sees the work I put in, and I don’t ever feel less than them.”

Reporter Annika Hammerschlag will join Megazord and Dragonzord on their quest for glory, beginning at 11 a.m. Friday. Follow her updates on Twitter @a_hammerschlag.