(November 26, 2003) -- Clark’s Robotics Team mentored a group of Fremont Elementary students in creating a robot to enter in the Los Angeles Regional FIRST LEGO League Tournament at Manhattan Beach last Saturday. The Fremont team placed third out of 16 teams.

Clark Magnet Robotics members junior Harish Venkitaramanan and senior Punardeep Sikka, with the help of Clark graduate Christopher Kilpatrick, have been mentoring Fremont students after school on Wednesdays and Fridays for the past two months.

Kim McComas, the parent of a student attending Fremont Elementary, organized and initiated the Robotics programming at Fremont. According to McComas, she contacted Chris Kilpatrick because she knew through his mom that he was on the Clark Robotics Team. She said she thought that he would be the perfect candidate to mentor this young team of robotic engineers.

Financially, the Fremont Robotics Team was assisted by many organizations. McComas said that the Crescenta Valley and La Cañada Lion’s Clubs gave much financial support. The Nestle Company, based in Glendale, also supported the team. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich also gave money to assist the team as well.

The elementary school student’s creation was a simple robot created out of LEGO building blocks. According to Venkitaramanan, the Clark team mostly assisted in programming the contraption. The competition was a mix of different events that demanded the robot to clear specific challenges. Each completed challenge scored points benefiting the team.

Two more competitions are scheduled for the team, the next one in two weeks. Venkitaramanan said that Clark Robotics plan to continue this program.