River Springs Temecula’s Cyborg Zombies won an Imagery Award for their robot entry at the FIRST Robotics Empire Regional in Rancho Mirage on February 28. The Zombies are a team of 35 high school students who built their robot entry over six weeks beginning in January. The award not only recognizes the engineering and aesthetic design of the robot, but the good character of the team members themselves.
Student Alex Nagelvoort described the award as “highly coveted,” and noted that it recognized the contributions of each team member. He said, “After five years of growing, continuously improving our image, and learning how to work well together as a team, our hard work paid off.”
George Essel, CTE Senior Department Head at Springs, added, “Our team works hard together as a family throughout the year. Our team is student-led, and our goals are to show other students how to adopt gracious professionalism, to develop interests in science and technology and to inspire others to do good for the global community.”
The Zombies competed against 38 teams at the Regional, and will participate in a second competition in San Diego April 2-4.
