Munching on pizza, students gathered to celebrate the newly demolished room, whose structure would support the passion driven project. On Monday, Nov. 17, a new program at Thousand Oaks High School was introduced by a ribbon-cutting ceremony: robotics.
For the past five years, four faculty members at TOHS have worked together to formulate a robotics program that allowed students interested in technology to create and expand on their passion. Two years ago, principal Eric Bergmann gave the instruction to Ashley Cooper, the Career Education Coordinator, to start working on the class.
“When we got that directive from Dr. Bergmann, we found funding from the Strong Work Force grant that comes out of the Community College Chancellor’s Office here in California,” Cooper said.
Last year, Daniel Bell, who is the only licensed general contractor educator in the district, taught his students how to properly and safely demolish work in the construction technology program. Once the grant was awarded, Cooper had Bell’s students work and convert the old metal shop room into the new robotics class.
“CVUSD was a member of the consortium grant application written by the Ventura County Office of Education to benefit Manufacturing, Robotics, and AI in Ventura County,” Cooper said.
Renovating took four months and purchasing devices and tools took two months, in total making the refurbishment six months. Cooper also found out that science teacher, Tyler Hernandez, has a self-taught background in robotics and helped fund previous robotics clubs, and asked for his help to run and teach the class. Altogether, hard work and persistence was put into the making of this class for the students of TOHS.
“It was a collaboration between Dr. Bergmann and his vision,” Cooper said. “The County Office of Education helping write the grant, the Community Chancellor’s Office providing the funding opportunity, Mr. Hernandez going back to school to get his credentials, and then myself connecting those dots to make it happen for all of our students.”
Since the renovation, TOHS now runs the only four-credit robotics program in the entire district, meaning we are the only school in the CVUSD to have robotics as an official class.
“I hope that our entry class remains college prep to cast as wide a net as possible to our students,” Cooper said. “We want this to be accessible to all students on campus who want to design, create and manufacture.”
Students can enroll in the sixth-period class to learn more about building and modeling robots, and later on, there plans for a level two class in the future, advancing the education on campus and encouraging students to explore new career paths.
