With the opening of the ULab, there are many places to explore throughout the new building: one of them, located front and center on the second floor, is the new makerspace. Along with housing activities like virtual reality, Engineering Club and drones, the makerspace also hosts robotics.
A co-captain of the club, along with Benjamin Frischer and Niam Patel, sophomore Noah Roth loves the new space. He has pursued robotics since arriving at UPrep as a sixth grader.
“It’s awesome,” Roth said. “There is so much more room, more tables and more opportunity for collaboration. Now everyone can be collaborating on one robot at the same time. Instead of having a big table where three teams are working, we can spread out.”
For upper and middle school robotics coach Matt Palubinskas, the quality difference is massive.
“The new makerspace is magnitudes better,” Palubinskas said. “It’s like going from a bicycle to a car.”
Technology Coordinator Jonathon Delgado, who was responsible for deciding what equipment to put in the room, noted that the room is eight times bigger than the one in the main building.
“There we could not have a lot of kids flying drones because of the limitations of space, but now with this bigger space, we can have all those programs here,” Delgado said.
From the robotics perspective, the space allows the team to trial their creations.
“We are going to get the opportunity to test our robots more often because previously we just built it, and then the first chance we got to test it was when we went to the competition,” Roth said.
According to Roth, the club is a place where students can tinker around and build robots, which then are used in competitions. There are four competitions every year.
“It’s two teams of two robots fighting against each other, running into each other, hitting each other, trying to score the most points,” Roth said.
Along with the promise of being able to engineer with friends, the exciting competitions are what keeps Roth coming back each year.
“You go into a match and there are a couple minutes of robots running into each other trying to score the most points,” Roth said. “It’s very fast-paced and hectic.”
The club meets twice a week after school for an hour and a half. They look to increase the amount of meetings as the club expands. Last year, there were only four students; now, there are 12. Roth is constantly in recruiting mode as he thinks of new ways to lure new members, especially with the new makerspace as leverage.
“We need to start cutting steel during community time where everyone can see because the sparks go everywhere and it’s really cool,” Roth said. “A lot of people have been saying it feels way too complicated to join, but it’s just screwing pieces in.”
With the increased chance for growth, Roth appreciates the new location and all that comes with it.
“This ULab is an amazing new space,” Roth said. “This is an amazing opportunity for the robotics club.”
