LOS ANGELES — High school students from all over the world competed in the FIRST Robotics Competition in Port Hueneme. Many of these young people are learning to become the next innovators, science and technology leaders.  

Team Gyffingear anxiously prepared to take the playing field in the competition, bringing high school students from all over the world together in a battle of the bots. 

“It’s our last match, so we’ll see how we do,” said Adrian Montes, a Palmdale Aerospace Academy senior.

Montes said designing their robot was rooted in mechanical engineering that he will one day be able to use working as an aerospace engineer for NASA. 

He fell in love with aerospace 10 years ago, at just 7 years old.

“I knew that I wanted to do aerospace when I went to the Endeavor, when they were on the road, when they were showing it off,” he explained of the NASA spaceship. “I looked up, and I saw that wing and I was like, ‘I love this.’”

He said he loves design. He and his team spent six weeks building their robot called The Orion using sophisticated hardware and software technology to compete as part of about 80 matches over the three-day competition. 

The two-and-a-half-minute game is called "Charged Up." The students have programmed their bots to do cool things, like grab cubes and cones and score them. Then the drivers take over. 

Brian Martin watches his former team proudly. He used to teach at The Palmdale Aerospace Academy, but he’s a game announcer now.

He said this competition is not just about giving the students real world mechanical engineering experience, although that is part of it. 

Some of the biggest companies in the industry were there recruiting and offering millions of dollars in scholarships to help set a path for high school students who are headed for a career in STEM.

When she was that age, Athena Kolli said she met a crossroad. 

Her decision lead her here to college at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena where she’s now a junior, preparing for her own robotics competition. But Athena remembers just a few years ago, she was struggling to decide between a career in mechanical engineering or fashion.

She decided the greater impact would be made in this industry, but found a common thread between both.

“Sustainability, specifically in fashion, is really something that needs a lot of work. So there’s a lot of work being done in sustainable materials and that takes someone who has a strong engineering background to understand manufacturing processes,” Kolli explained.

She’s honing in on those skills as she puts the finishing touches on her robot for CalTech’s 38th annual Engineering Design Competition.

Five teams of six or seven students have been working to build two mobile robots that will be tasked with shooting as many racquet balls as possible into targets.

Athena’s team is the only one made up of nearly all women. CalTech junior Hannah Fisher said she’s proud to break the barriers in this male dominated industry.

“It’s definitely tough and I think all we can do is try to be successful,” Fisher explained. “Go on to be women engineers and just be there to be role models and make the field better for the next generation of women who want to be engineers.”

The students’ mechanical and civil engineering professor, Michael Mello, said the aerospace industry has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last few years, especially with the privatization of space. His students are mechanical engineers by training, but many have an interest in aerospace. 

“That experience is invaluable — building, testing, failing and rebuilding again,” Mello explained. “And it translates perfectly well into the aerospace world or whatever world that they enter in the professional realm.”

Building the foundation before take off, Montes said back at his robotics competition. Although they won’t be advancing to playoffs, he’s gotten invaluable experience working with the program he needs to build drones and is already thinking of what they can do differently next year. 

“It was fun making this robot, but we have to improve on it and be better,” he said.