A year ago, Hammond Morton junior Josue Pedraza couldn’t get his Robotics friends to leave him alone about joining the team.
The 16-year-old was into music and couldn’t imagine getting into nuts and bolts and math and physics. And he certainly didn’t know the lingo it took to be proficient in the realm, nevermind good, he said.
Today, not only is Josue Team Hammond’s biggest cheerleader, he can teach any neophyte interested in robotics the ropes via a computer app he created for the U.S. Congressional Code Challenge this fall. His creation earned him first place in Indiana’s First Congressional District, which he learned during a Tech Fair event at Purdue Northwest’s Challenger Learning Center Monday night.
Called RoboticsMuse, Josue’s app addresses the “disconnect between new and experienced students on the team,” he explained to U.S. Representative Frank J. Mrvan. Some of its features include a section detailing the seven pathways of engineering and a glossary of engineering terms — items that he didn’t have when he finally relented and joined the team.
“As a rookie, it was really hard; looking at the math, I didn’t know how I was going to do it,” Josue said. “But now that I know a thing or two, I want to help and give others the chance I didn’t have
“I never imagined I would be doing this a year ago, but playing music taught me one thing: When you’re passionate about something, you put every ounce of your being into it, and advocating for STEM is my ethos.”
Two other students, Alex Gallegos, of Munster, and Mikey Hawkins III, of Cedar Lake, also made it into the top three apps out of 105 submitted from across the First District. Mikey, a seventh grader who attends Hanover Central Middle School, created FinanceApp, which teaches kids all about compound interest, investing, and spending rules, among other things.
“I was surprised by the amount of people who don’t know finance when they get out of high school,” Mikey said, adding that he sees himself improving his app and perhaps uploading it to the Play Store via the Hackers Club he was invited to join.
Alex, an eighth grader at Wilbur Wright Middle School, meanwhile, created Fishing Frenzy, a game that teaches players “to protect the quality of aquatic life.” He explained to Mrvan how PFAS, a harmful chemical in many plastics, not only harms marine life but causes cancer in humans — a point with which Mrvan is familiar.
“Firefighters use a lot of equipment that have PFAS in it; it protects them, but it also causes cancer. That’s why I’m attached to a piece of legislation that limits the amount of PFAS,” Mrvan said.
Alex said he learned a lot about time management while he was working toward the competition deadline and he discovered he really enjoyed the design aspect of coding, he said. His brother Matt, a fifth grader at Frank Hammond in Munster, doesn’t share that passion.
“He’s the coder and I’m the outside guy,” Matt said.
Mrvan thanked the three and reminded them of how their talents will contribute later on.
“AI is literally the future of our country, and as you’re learning from your successes, the more important thing is that you learn from your failures. If something doesn’t work, you build upon that and create other things,” he said.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
