HONOLULU (KHON2) — Signing Day is something KHON2 has covered many times in recent years, as athletes put pen to paper signing a letter of intent to attend the college of their choice.
Over at St. Louis School, another signing day was held, not for athletes, but for other rising stars — future engineers, computer programmers and more.
“Originally when I joined the high school I really wanted to become a astrophysicist, but after spending a lot of time in the robotics lab and being able to have a lot of access to machines that you don’t normally get access to unless you go to university it made me realize I have a strong passion for mechanical engineering,” explained Leilani Phan, Kalani High School senior.
This is the first Robotics Signing Day for future innovators, celebrating these students, who, like the star athletes on their respective campuses, have committed to teamwork.
“I came to St. Louis without an interest in sports and that posed a challenge cause it’s a predominant sports school. New passion was a bit challenging when I saw that robotics team was interested because I was very interested in engineering at that too,” said Isaac Lau, St. Louis School senior.
Like athletes who are celebrated, these students are also being honored for their teamwork, excellence and innovation as their family and friends witness them take their next big step in their academic and professional journeys.
And even if you get into robotics, it’s not necessarily all about engineering.
“A major part of what we do is, yes, building the robots. But getting our names out there and inspiring others and what we do to do that means it’s multifaceted. It’s business processes. It’s management of teams, everything and building the robots,” said Mason Nagata, Kalani High School senior.
And it’s proving to your classmates that success isn’t only defined on the playing field, but sometimes on the battlefield.
“What’s a good experience in seeing my brothers here at St. Louis, their signing day with football or baseball, basketball. It felt good to have a Robotics signing day that’s been done out of state and being one of the first years to do it here at St. Louis instills a lot of pride and accomplishment,” Isaac added.
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And they will all turn pro.
“They will take the skills that they learned through their competition and they could apply that to their professional lives. Less than one and 16,000 high school athletes I’ll play professional athletics. But every one of these students can apply what they learned and their profession after they graduate from college.”