Sunnyvale robotics team demos skills at hackers challenge

Firing up the robots

Members of the Firebots, a FIRST Robotics team from Fremont High School, demonstrated their robot at the Pacific Hackers’ annual DEFCON and CTF challenge on Saturday, June 22, in Mountain View.

The Firebots were hosted by local Meet-up group Hacker Dojo, which also gave tours to prospective members.

“The Hacker Dojo is a place that brings together a diversity of viewpoints and experiences that is hard to find anymore in tech and in Silicon Valley,” executive director Eric Hess said. “This is a place where people from all walks of life come together to share food, code, ideas, a game of ping pong, and that collection of people forms a tremendous community that is very difficult to find anywhere.”

Pacific Hackers president Marco Palacios agreed that “first and foremost, we are a community.”

“We do hands-on stuff so people can learn, so we can have a secure tomorrow. We are here to support everyone that is into hacking,” Palacios said.

To check out Hacker Dojo events, visit https://www.meetup.com/hackerdojo/events.

STEM summer camp

Girlstart is holding two free STEM summer camps for girls at Columbia Middle School on July 8-12 and July 15-19 Campers can discover what it takes to land on the moon, launch a satellite and explore new technologies from NASA. Participants will simulate a solar eclipse, collect planetary core samples, code a robot that navigates through the solar system and cultivate space crops in this STEM program.

The camp is for girls entering grades 4-6 in August. Registration is required to https://linktr.ee/girlstartinsunnyvale, or call 408-730-7350 for more information.