I met with East Palo Alto's very own robotics team, the Churrobots, last night. I remembered reading about their national competition appearance in Houston last year. It's fantastic to see the Churrobots thriving! They're a true source of pride for East Palo Alto, a wonderful example of the great things happening here.
LaMonica Peters
Churrobots was started at Hope Horizons (formerly Bayshore Christian Ministry) by EPA’s Matt and Tiffany Pizzimenti in 2019. Matt and Tiffany live next door to Hope Horizons, and have generously provided space for Churrobots to work on their robots and conduct business meetings. The team comes from a variety of local high schools, with Eastside High having a strong representation on the Churrobots.
The facility housed at the Pizzimenti's includes both meeting space and a full workshop with machine tools.
I toured the facility next to Hope Horizons and then headed to Bloomhouse with the Churrobots head coach, Greg Corsetto.
A father/son team, Cameron and Chris Tacklind, has opened a space at Bloomhouse. This space is used by 14 local robotics teams, and it is the only full-size practice course for robotics competitions on the peninsula.
There were three teams when I toured the space, and there were also a handful of engineers from local tech companies helping and mentoring the teams.
Churrobots kids have graduated high school and gone on to pursue studies in mechanical engineering, computer science, and other technical fields. While much of the work is technical, the kids on the Churrobots team also work on business development to get sponsorships, purchasing, logistics, and other non-technical details of running a robotics team.
I enjoyed meeting the Churrobots team and touring their facility. As a member of East Palo Alto's City Council, my question is, "How can the City of East Palo Alto support this group?"
