The Robotics club is a group of students at Oakmont that meet and build robots designed to fight and play against other robots from different schools in Oakmont’s district. 

These robots can differ in size, shape, and technique, giving the students who build them complete freedom and creativity to construct their robot based on what they think would work best in competitions.

Dominic Siino, a junior at Oakmont, explains the origin of the club, which started as just a fun activity to do with friends. John Carlson, who is now Club President, found the pastime interesting.

“My friend, John Carlson, started the club and I thought it was interesting because it incorporated engineering and coding,” Siino said. “I thought it’d be fun to work with my friends to build something for a competition.”

With help from Oakmont’s physics teacher, Alexander Wurden, students in the club even create the robot’s codes and remotes. 

“Then they learn how to code a little bit, learning kind of how to work with the parts that we’ve got, put them together, and then design a robot for the competition,” Wurden said. 

One of the best things about this club is that it’s effortless to start, even if you have no prior experience. The club welcomes and encourages everyone who wants to learn more about designing and creating robots to join. 

They even have a different group for beginners to help teach them and make the experience less threatening.

Riley Abbot, a sophomore at Oakmont, just joined the Robotics Club this year and was surprised at how easy it was to start and how much she’s progressed since joining.

“It was pretty easy,” Abbot said. “I’ve been in it for just a few months and I’ve never done it before.”

Overall, this club is different from any other clubs at Oakmont and it’s a great start if you want to major in mechanical engineering, or if you are just interested in the design, construction, and operation of robots.