Moorpark College’s Engineering Club is gearing up for the annual Vex Skyrise robotics competition in January. Robot enthusiasts are preparing for this competition by participating in the preliminary matches, but Moorpark proves to be one of the main teams to beat.

“We’ve done a good job assembling our team every week and getting things done,” said Engineering Club President Michael Culver.

The Vex scrimmages are being held at the California State University Northridge this year. While the world games will not officially begin until January, the preliminary rounds of the competition have been held once a month since Sept. 2014.

Last year Moorpark placed 13th out of 62 teams in the global competition, but this year they are well on their way to beating this already impressive placing. According to the club’s vice president, mechanical engineering major Chris McLaughlin, the team has won every game so far and is currently in first place.

The participating teams each build two robots that will compete against other colleges and independent teams in an intricate tower building match, with two teams playing at a time.

One robot focuses on grabbing tower pieces and holding the tower up while the other picks up cubes and puts them over the tower to increase the size and height. This is all accomplished through robotic programming and a remote control.

Gentle Giant and Tiny Terminator are the names of the team’s impressive robotic team. While they are currently excelling in scrimmages, they are still a work in progress and are constantly being updated.

“We improve on them, [and] we’ll take notes from our last competition,” said McLauglin. “Then for the next few weeks we’ll meet up and work on the robots and improve the designs.”

According to Dylan Slater a mechanical engineering major and the club’s secretary, engineering is a huge aspect in the art of robotics, but other fields are necessary as well. Majors such as physics, mathematics, and computer programming play a necessary factory, but all majors are welcomed to participate.

“We always try and open our meetings so people with no experience can be welcomed,” said Slater. “Anyone who is interested on working on it [the robots] can.”

For those who want to cheer for the robotic dynamic duo in competitive action, the CSUN Vex competitions are open to the general public.

With a welcoming environment all are welcome to participate in the MCEC. The meetings are held Tues. 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. and Fri. 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the Physical Science building room 203.