Titanium Robotics finished up a fantastic 2018-19 year with its annual banquet last Saturday evening, where around forty people, consisting of Titanium Robotics team members, their family members, San Marino High School and Titanium Robotics alumni, and the team’s mentors, enjoyed an evening of fun and fond memories. Sophomore Julian Sze enjoyed “having fun with other team members,” concluding the event to have been “in general really, really fun.”
At the banquet the guests heard several speeches from mentors, former Engineering President Olivia Cameron, previous Business President Kimia Hassibi, new Engineering President Edmond Wen, and new Business President Madeleine Haddad. During these speeches, Titanium Robotics’ departing seniors were recognized and given gifts of farewell: intricately detailed models of this year’s competition robot. Ben Ung, Olivia Cameron, Stella Yao, Dina Weiss, Max Winn, Elizabeth Castreje, and William Cockrum were all recognized, bid farewell, and wished best of luck after retiring as team members—hopefully to return as future mentors.
Accompanying senior recognition, awards were bestowed upon several team members by the newly appointed engineering and business presidents. These awards were voted upon by all current members of Titanium Robotics; the categories being, most valuable nerd, most inspirational, rookie of the year, most spirited, most graciously professional, and the safety award. These titles were granted to Matthew Lee, Jack Moffat, Amanda Lopez, Taylor Suetsugu, Ben Ung, and Sophia Tran, respectively.
Besides the recognition of several Titanium Robotics team members, cabinet positions were publically announced. Initially, former presidents Olivia Cameron and Kimia Hassibi announced Edmond Wen and Madeleine Haddad as the Engineering and Business Presidents. Thereafter, the succeeding presidents announced to the entirety of the attending team members the new cabinet positions for the upcoming 2019-20 year. On the Engineering aspect of the team, engineering vice presidents are Tyler Hand and Jack Moffat; Angie Yung was appointed engineering assistant, Alec Cabalinan and Jonathan Fong were chosen to be mechanical captains. Electrical captain is Elise Hong, Justin Jang is CAD (computer-aided design) captain, design captain is Taylor Suetsugu, and programming captain is Matthew Lee. Business positions include Jeff Wang as strategy captain, Marcus Chua as webmaster, Amanda Lopez as publicist, treasurer is Victor Charle, and events coordinator is Jeff Wang.
During the few hours that the Titanium Robotics banquet took place, team members socialized and celebrated the closing of the 2018-19 year. Senior Ben Ung remarked, “It was great seeing the alumni again.” Freshman Michael Pink congratulated Titanium Robotics’ previous and current presidents, sharing that he thought they “did really good.” Anticipating a great next year, Matthew Lee mentioned, “Each year of Robotics bring[s] new and interesting challenges. I’m excited to see what comes next!”
Titanium Robotics is a team consisting of over 100 students, mainly from San Marino High School, who come together with a common interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Students learn from professional engineers and mentors to build and compete in the annual FIRST Robotics Challenge with a robot of their own design. Programming, electrical work, computer-aided design, and business management are all run by student representatives, making the entire organization student-led from start to finish.
