CAMARILLO, Calif. — The newest major at California State University Channel Islands is trying to establish a reputation.

College sophomore Andrew Herdering has been competing with robots since he was a middle schooler.

Herdering and his teammates are preparing for the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) subterranean challenge. Teams from all over the globe compete to build robots that work underground. 

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Hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money are at stake and the Department of Defense is watching for ideas that could benefit our military.

Herdering will be one of the first students ever to graduate with an engineering degree from CSUCI. He’s a mechatronics engineering major. It’s a combination of a lot of things including mechanical engineering and computer science.

The department is only two years old.

Despite how new they are, the team hopes entering such a high profile contest will help them make a name for themselves.

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