Left to right: Jeff Cooper (Coach), Alisha Porraz, Lissette Pulido, Isabella Lopez, Andrea Alonzo, Bertha Zaragoza
Left to right: Justin Fraser (Coach), Andrea Alonzo, Isabella Lopez, Bertha Zaragoza, Lissette Pulido, Alisha Porraz, Jose Rodriguez, Catherine Carpenter (Coach), Jeff Cooper (Coach) and Ismael Hernandez
SANTA MARIA — Delta High School’s first girl’s robotics team shined during the “Evening with Industry” at the Madonna Expo Center in San Luis Obispo on Thursday night.
The young women and their coach Jeff Cooper, who were guests of honor by the Society of Women Engineers Cal Poly Chapter, made the most of the opportunity as they mingled with representatives from Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Amazon and many other companies searching for young engineers.
“Having opportunities like this to see so many women engineers, to see what a real business dinner looks like, makes me realize how many young women like me can get trapped in a narrow view of ourselves,’’ said senior Bertha Zaragoza. “It made me realize what is possible.”
Cooper agreed.
“Our Delta girls knocked it out of the park,’’ he added. “They can have intelligent conversations with rocket scientists and discuss things they know now that without robotics they may have not understood before. They represented the school and the Santa Maria community perfectly.’’
The event’s keynote speaker was also a Santa Maria native, who as a rocket scientist spoke of the resiliency necessary to find satisfaction in employment and home life.
In other recent DHS robotics news, two teams competed at Cal Poly’s annual Vex Robotics Tournament. Both won matches against larger high schools from Sacramento to Los Angeles. Team 93455A went 3-2-1 and was ranked 15th of 42 teams by the end of the day.
“If we had not made two errors in driving during the first match, we would have made it to the quarterfinals this year,’’ said student Ismael Hernandez. “Still I am proud of us. This is our first year and we competed.”
“The two teams, boys and girls, built great robots,’’ Cooper said. “I am very proud of all their dedication, and hard work learning to write computer code so quickly and building sophisticated machines.’’