BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Hispanic Engineering, Science, and Technology Week took place this week.
It’s a nationally recognized model for promoting STEM careers to students of all ages.
Reynaldo Jose Guillen from St. Luke’s Catholic School, one of the thousands of students in the Rio Grande Valley participating in the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s HESTEC Week.
“Today’s norm is technology and by the time these kids leave middle school or high school the technology they learned is obsolete,” said St. Luke’s Coach Reynaldo Guillen.
There were different activities throughout the week, 35 teams competed in the U.S. Navy SeaPerch Challenge, which allows students to learn about robotics, engineering, science, and mathematics while building an underwater remotely operated vehicle.
“From last year’s design we completely re-done it and we made it more compact so that in the water it can move faster we also wanted to make sure that this year we got the buoyancy correctly and we did have a few difficulties but we overcame them, said student Reynaldo Jose Guillen.
Students were judged on their robot’s design and ability to navigate in underwater obstacle courses.
“I think it’s really important for kids to do STEM and robotics because it something that if you like it you can consider doing it in the future,” said student Laura Guillen.
Since its start, HESTEC has reached over eight thousand educators, twenty-two thousand college students and over fifty-eight thousand middle and high school students.
Tomorrow is the last day of HESTEC week which will feature a free event for families at the UTRGV Edinburg Campus starting at 4 PM.
