An information technology professional and freelance photographer, Suresh volunteered to lead the Shooting Stars, his daughter’s STEM competition team, after their coach stepped down. Five years later, he still guides the six-member team, many of them friends of his daughters, as they compete against regional, state and international teams in the FIRST LEGO League. The global program introduces students ages 4 to 16 to science, technology, engineering and math through hands-on robotics challenges using LEGO® technology. Each season brings a new challenge. Teams design and build robots, writing code to complete tasks on a competition field. During tournaments, students have just two minutes to demonstrate their robot’s performance for judges and fellow competitors.
“We are not going to win tournaments,” Suresh reminds his team. “We’re going to learn from tournaments and improve ourselves at every stage.” That mindset paid off this past season after the team faced a major setback at a qualifying competition. With less than 15 days before regionals, the students rebuilt their robot and rewrote their code in Python — earning a top-four finish at the FIRST LEGO League Northeast Florida Regional Championship. As the next season approaches in August, Suresh is recruiting new members after several veteran teammates moved on to high school. Many former Shooting Stars have continued into STEM programs, including his oldest daughter, now a student at Nease High School. She has returned to mentor the team and now serves as a student ambassador for the Northeast Florida FIRST LEGO League.
