Pahrump Valley High School has a wide variety of clubs and sports to choose from. But there is one club that focuses specifically on robotics, which is the robotics club; led by a teacher at PVHS, Daniel Gutman. Although it’s their first year of the Robotics club starting, it has been running smoothly so far.
The Robotics club helps with learning how to build certain robotic machines of course. It also helps teach teamwork to the members of the club. I got to talk to a member and the advisor in the Robotics club. One being a student and the other being a teacher at the school. The first member of the club that I talked to was Brandon Battaglia. He is a freshman at PVHS and is glad that he is contributing to a school organization. Battaglia has been in the robotics club since October, 2023 and was interested in joining it due to his interest in robotics and engineering. When asked about how it is so far he stated, “I think the club is run very well considering it’s their first year.” In the club he has a desire to learn how to build robots and learn how to work with a team. Currently, he usually works the 3d printer and helps work with the robot. The club can be inconsistent sometimes but most of the time it lasts two and a half hours in their meetings. As of right now, they are working on an event at school to help raise money and awareness for the club. So far in order to set it up they have had to do a selection of preparations which he stated, “We had to make a course for it, decide what we have to raffle, and decide if there is food and drinks.”
The advisor of the robotics club that was interviewed was the supervisor of the club, Daniel Gutman. Gutman is usually the teacher of philosophy, sociology, and STEM. It is first year teaching at PVHS but it is his 5th year teaching in Nevada as a whole. He became the supervisor of the Robotics club at the beginning of the school year. The best part of advising for him so far this year is when students tie lessons together or make personal connections to text sets. However, his favorite thing to do in the club is let the students drive the robot around. As of right now, they are putting together a showcase for early May. So far they have not run into any problems regarding the project and they are about a third into it. Once everything regarding that is finished the plan after the project is to throw an end of the year celebration for everyone in the club.
Even though it’s their first year of the robotics club starting up, the students and supervisor have progressed a lot in it and even are working on events to raise money and awareness for them. Go out and support them in their journey to make the club better.
