Photo Credit: CFISDEducation
Cypress Park HS robotics club works to inspire the next generation
A High School Journalism Network collaboration By Barakah Adedeji, Cypress Park HS
Cypress Park High School students are helping build the future, block by block. Three members of its ParkBots team, alongside sponsor Chris Winkler, volunteered to give up a Saturday to refurbish robotic Lego kits at the New Beginning Church earlier this month.
“We were gifted a Lego set to do a STEM project for little ones,” said Winkler. “Dr. Dee Wallace helps run First Lego League, a global STEM initiative for kids aged 5-16, in some of the poorer neighborhoods, so she needed help reorganizing the kits after the prior set of kids had used them.”
Alongside schools in both CFISD and the broader South Houston area, the groups reworked the Lego sets for the upcoming First Lego League robotics season. Outside of this cohort, ParkBots also hopes to start a collaborative program with elementary schools in the community in an effort to encourage greater interest in robotics in the district.
“I think having the opportunity to bring that to more elementary schools is really interesting because I sure didn’t know about robotics when I was this young,” said Cypress Park senior and ParkBots member Valeria Carrillo Guevara. “Seeing the kids be inspired by something we love, and we wish we could have done when we were younger, is something that I would love to see, especially because of the cost of robotics and the lack of interest. So having the opportunity to inspire the kids is something that we’d be happy to do.”
The district’s robotics teams have gone above and beyond in STEM, with students from Bridgeland and Cypress Ridge high schools competing in the Vex Robotics World Championship in 2024. That same year, Cypress Park finished as a Tournament Finalist in the CFISD High School Invitational on Feb. 8.
It’s that type of experience they hope to encourage younger students to pursue.
“It’s nice to give and share with the younger generation in robotics,” said Cypress Park junior and ParkBots member Tiger Ngyuen. “It’s really fun to see how they will build with the stuff we organized for them. I think it’s nice because we can see mistakes we’ve made in the past, and we can help them improve beyond us. That’s the best part about working with the elementary kids.”
Source: CFISD
