Zachary Bonewit, head coach of TechHOUNDS and engineering teacher, explains procedures and plans for the last offseason invitational, the Boiler Bot Battle, which was hosted at Purdue University.

TechHOUNDS will have continue to have meetings each Thursday from 3:15 to 5 after school in the main cafeteria. According to Ryan Forrest, electrical and programming division co-lead and senior, TechHOUNDS has participated in several offseason competitions, including  Indy CAGE Match at Southport High School and IndyRage, an all-girls event. Forrest said these competitions were meant to further help prepare newer members.

“The offseason competitions are meant for new teams to learn how things work, and for rookie members of experienced teams to learn how things work,” Forrest said. “We get the rookie members in, and they get to figure out how competitions–it’s like a mock competition–so the rookies get to come in and learn how everything works.”

Zachary Bonewit, head coach of TechHOUNDS and engineering teacher, said it was also an opportunity to let new members operate and ‘drive’ the robot.

“The purpose of these new events is to train new drivers. At the girls event, we had two girl drivers that had never driven before,” Bonewit said. “At the CAGE Match, we had two other drivers who had never driven before.”

Bonewit also said several other events were planned for the upcoming weeks.

“We do have coming up our Women in Technology workshop, which is one of our outreach events. We host fifth through eighth grade girls,” Bonewit said. “Just trying to get them engaged in STEM and trying to spread the word of STEM to girls interested in pursuing education and STEM-related pathways. It’s on Nov. 17.” By James Yin