Jeanette Ramos Espino
I.V. MESA Program Director
Tel: 760-353-2860 Ext. 21
FAX: 760-353-0396
E-Mail: Jeanette

Tina Araujo
Tel: 760-353-2860 Ext. 23
E-Mail: Tina

2370 W. Main Street
El Centro, CA 92243



FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded by Dean Kaman with the intention of reaching young minds and showing them that math, science and engineering are fun, cool, exciting, and accessible.

Imperial Valley MESA students from Central Union High School recently competed in the 15th annual FIRST Robotics competition. The team comprised of 16 students attended the southern California regional and competed against 50 other high schools, of which only eight teams were considered rookie teams.

The students spent a combined total of 1,496 hours in just over 4 weeks, learning, designing, building, programming, and trouble shooting the robot, which they named “SPARTAN 16.2.” The team overcame many obstacles including not having access to a professional machine shop. Even under these conditions, these students never considered quitting as an option.



The Southern California Regional was held in Inglewood at the Great Western Forum from March 23-25. Once the team saw what other schools had created they became a little worried. Some of the other robots were very well built. Other teams had sponsors like Toyota, NASA, Northrop Grumman, and many others. It seemed as if the team didn’t stand a chance competing against these seemingly factory manufactured robots but the team rose to the occasion.

The team competed in 9 of 75 matches and ranked 22nd among the 50 different teams. The top 8 teams had the honor of choosing two other teams to attend finals with them as their partners. Central was one of the schools chosen! The team made it to the finals and placed 8th. At the awards ceremony, the team was presented with The Judge’s Award. This was a great honor for the team. The judges, comprised of NASA engineers, were impressed by the robot, the students, and the goals that the team has for the future.



One of the many goals this team has for next year is to mentor one other high school robotics team from the valley. To accomplish this the team needs help from the community. Their primary goal, and the vision of FIRST, is to change the culture of a community in to becoming more oriented towards math science and engineering. Building robots is part of how this change is brought about. How cool is that?!

The team is asking community members, and businesses to get involved with their endeavor and become a sponsor. In return the team will proudly wear your company logo on team shirts and place stickers on their robots to let the world know you made a difference. The team could also benefit from having access to machine shops and would be thrilled to have more mentors! If you, or if someone you know, is savvy on electronics, engineering, or computer programming, and could spare some time to assist, the team would be glad to have you join them.

To become involved, please contact Mr. J.P. Garcia at Central Union High School (jpgarcia@cuhsd.net) or Mr. Victor Torres with Imperial Valley MESA (vtorres@ecsd.k12.ca.us). For more information about FIRST please visit their website at: www.usfirst.org/robotics

The team would like to thank the Annenberg Foundation in San Diego, Imperial Valley MESA, and Del Taco for their support. In addition, thank you to Mr. Nick Nice and his family in mentoring the team.

Article written by: Mr. J P Garcia
Date Submitted on page: Sunday, April 23, 2006


At the awards ceremony, the Judges award was being announced, and we were very excited to hear that we had won!

The team was on the playing field, "high-fiving" all the NASA judges. All of these engineers congratulated the team as we walked by, truly a great experience.

Team picture outside the Great Western Forum after the event. Notice the smiles...