X Academy Robotics Team is Heading to the World Championship!
On May 4, despite the rain and wind, the Hephaestus Robotics team secured a remarkable 3rd place finish in the Ranger Class and an invitation to compete at the MATE ROV World Championship in Kingsport, Tennessee June 16-23 where they will compete against 40 of the top teams from around the globe! Our Angry Otters team in the Navigator class demonstrated exceptional skill and perseverance by taking 2nd place in their division. Thanks to our partner the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, these students developed impressive engineering, design and problem-solving skills while boosting their confidence and sparking their imagination.
We want to send all team members that want to go to experience the World Championship. This will cost $2500 per student.
X Academy hosts robotics clubs in Watsonville and Santa Cruz in partnership with SC Office of Education for high school students
After placing 5th in the MATE ROV World Championship in 2023, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education asked us to provide robotics learning to high school students across Santa Cruz County. Over 50 students from 17 high schools met weekly from October to May to learn fundamentals of electronics, design, and programming along with skills in CAD, 3D printing, laser cutting and more. They will form teams for the MATE ROV competition on May 4, 2024. The competition tasks students to form a company to design, build and test underwater robots to complete simulated real-world missions based on the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development goals. Teams compete in five different activities: product demonstration, engineering presentation, technical documentation, corporate responsibility, safety, marketing display, and company spec sheet.
X Academy - PVUSD partnership hosted 80 students for math festival
On Saturday October 28, 2023 more than 80 students (grades 3rd thru 8th) and their parents enjoyed an afternoon exploring the joy of math through puzzles and games at Rolling Hills Middle School in Watsonville at a Julia Robinson Math Festival. We plan to host another Festival in the Spring 2024. If you want to bring a Julia Robinson Math Festival to your school, we can show you how!
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The X Academy is 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed in 2014
to provide STEAM enrichment programs to kids in the Santa Cruz County region.
Founded by Tim Sylvester, the X Academy was inspired by the Math Circles operating in Silicon Valley. Tim sought to bring these same opportunities to kids closer to home in Santa Cruz County by forming the X Academy with encouragement from Dr. Paul Zeitz, co-founder of the San Francisco Math Circle.
Since launching the Santa Cruz Math Circle in 2014, we’ve organized 93 weekly math sessions for 441 students from 62 different schools in Santa Cruz and Monterey County, thirty-eight percent female and one-third from traditionally underrepresented communities of color. The X Academy has hosted six Julia Robinson Math Festivals.
While the Math Circle was upended by the pandemic, the X Academy pilot tested a Robotics Program by preparing a team of 10 students from 3 schools to compete in the Underwater Robotics Competition in 2021 when the team placed 7th in the World Competition, telepresence division! In 2022, the robotics team of 20 students from 8 schools with the help of 10 mentors placed 3rd in the Monterey Bay Regional competition. The team won 2nd in 2023, qualifying them to compete in the World Championship where they placed 5th out of 32 teams from around the world - an amazing accomplishment! Recognizing the value of STEM experiences we created, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education entered into a partnership for the X Academy to expand to Watsonville to include 52 students from 15 schools across the county with 15 mentors.
The X Academy is providing Santa Cruz County students with the kind of STEM programs readily available to Silicon Valley students. With your contribution, we can grow our programs and provide scholarships to talented students who otherwise cannot afford these opportunities.
The X Academy receives funding from the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation
and the Sylvester-Meister Foundation
and individual donations from parents, friends and family.