A new Robotics Club has begun on Biola’s campus, gathering students with an interest in robotics and coding to work as a team.

Sophomore robotics major Jaran Mann, president of the Robotics Club, explains the club’s origins, goals and more.

ORIGINS

The Robotics Club has been about a year and a half in the making. According to Mann, the original idea for the club began in Oct. 2023 when he met the current vice president of the club, sophomore computer science major Ryan Ong. They got approval for the club in March 2024, but held off on meetings until this semester.

AIMING FOR INTERNATIONAL

“So ever since the beginning […] our main goal is to enter the international VEX U competition,” Mann said.

VEX U Robotics Competition is a tournament hosted by the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation. The competition challenges teams of students to create robots that can complete tasks, which earns them points.

Teams compete in matches to gain the most point and climb the ranks. In matches, if a team successfully gains more points than the opposing side, they win, which allows them to climb the ranks. Eventually, if a team is able to keep winning tournaments, they will be able to enter the VEX U Robotics World Championships, where teams from all over the world gather to compete in Dallas, Texas.

BUILDING A ROBOT

Mann revealed that his team had been working all summer — during a summer engineering internship — on robot designs through a trial-and-error process.

“We built two over the summer,” Mann said. “We took apart both of them, and we are on our third generation robot that will hopefully give us a greater competitive advantage against the other teams.”

Mann went on to describe the building process.

“We had to first start with the main chassis [skeleton], which includes the wheels and the body,” he said. “From there, we build the system that collects the pieces that we use to score. And then after we build like the main body, we insert the electronics. And from there we use C++ code on both VEX code software and Visual Studios code software to basically get the robot to run and function.”

In addition to robot building, Mann and his team had to learn a new set of rules. They were able to use an online instructional manual provided by VEX U, which they used to build their first robot. 

“We all had experience from different robotics competitions, but we had to first, in a way, like, adapt to the specific rules of VEX,” Mann said. 

While learning about how to build, Mann and his team are also thinking about the future. 

“So […] the great thing about robotics and the robotics program is that they’re teaching us both areas of computer science and engineering,” he said. “And from there, we can hopefully pass on those skills to the newer members, so they can help out in whichever branch they choose: designing and building the robot or coding.”

INFORMATION

The Robotics Club meets at LIM 250 on Mondays at 7:45 p.m., and at LIM 084 on Fridays at 5 p.m.

Those interested in joining can contact Mann at [email protected].