Horizon High School robotics team invited to world tournament

A group of students from Horizon High School will represent El Paso at April’s robotics world championship tournament in Louisville, Kentucky.

That tournament will pit the Scorpions against more than 1,000 other teams from across the globe.

Team members say they’ve sacrificed weekends and vacations, putting in 100’s of man hours to perfect their machines and make them as efficient as possible.

The teams must build and train their robots to complete specific instructions sent to them by tournament organizers.

Horizon will be the new kid on the black at the tournament as their school’s robotics program is only two years old.

“Our goal is to at least just make it to where we can go to the quarter finals or semi-finals,” said Horizon High Robotics Sophomore Dylan Padilla. “We all sit together and combine our minds to make the robot as efficient as we can and now it’s like great.”

Being part of the club presents an important science, math and tech opportunity to all of the team members but especially the girls who have quickly become key members in the squads success.

“My friend Dillon, he drives the robot,” said Horizon High Robotics Sophomore Erika Garcia. “He is really good at driving and me and Denise we design and program. I want to become a mechanical engineer so I thought this would be a really good route to take. Especially because Horizon has a really good S.T.E.M. program.”

The Horizon Robotics Team has racked up some valuable experience before their big trip to Kentucky.

The team won several local regional and divisional tournaments which allowed them to be invited to the worlds competition in the first place.

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