The Revere High School Robotics Club has reformed into the Engineering Club, in order to receive various organizational and cost benefits.

Adviser of the RHS Robotics Club (now known as the Engineering Club), Joseph Silvestri, managed two bridge building teams and the Robotics Club before the Engineering Club was established. Due to the time and resources it took to manage them separately, he combined them into the Engineering Club.

“Because of the Robotics Team, I didn’t have enough time for my bridge building team,” Silvestri said.

Club president Matthew Kemer discussed his role on the team, and how his two vice presidents, Natalie Allen and Ben Smock, help share the workload. At the meetings, the team is split into groups of about 5 people, and each group works on their own robot.

“I will be leading the meetings and be in charge of the competitions,” Kemer said.

Competitions are held throughout the year, and the team still has not decided which ones they will attend, but they are looking forward to attending at least two of them.

“They’re scheduled throughout the year, we haven’t decided which ones we’ll go to,” Silvestri said.

For the competitions, the team builds a robot for a specific purpose, and competes against other robots built for the same purpose.

“At competitions, you build a robot to score a ball into a net, for example,” Kemer said.

Vice president Natalie Allen explained how Robotics Club originally competed with an organization called FIRST. They provide international competitions throughout the year, and provided the equipment to design and build the robots. FIRST turned out to be too expensive for the team, so they switched over to a smaller company called VEX, which provides curriculum, robotics kits, and accessories for a much cheaper price.

“FIRST robotics is very large and very expensive, VEX is much cheaper,” Allen said.

Meetings are held after school in room 231 every Thursday, and last until 5 P.M. Interested students can join the club by attending one of the meetings.