The school is hosting and participating in the city’s first ever Southwest High School Drone Competition taking place at the school April 28, from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

The drone flying team, composed of students in the engineering program, was selected by STEM teacher Ysidro De La O. The team includes Alfredo Armenta, Kimberly Balderrama, Christopher Gomez, Aksel Mendoza, Gilbert Mendoza and David Salais.

A new competition comes with a range of emotion.

“It is exciting that we will be having our first competition here for the city of El Paso,” STEM teacher Ysidro De La O said. “But I do feel some pressure because we don’t exactly know what to expect and we are hosting it.”

Handling challenges like hoops, twists and sharp turns may determine the team’s success.

“There are different obstacle courses that each person in the team will fly the drone though,” team member Gilbert Mendoza said. “We can fly the drone solo or have a co-pilot. There is also a “search and rescue” obstacle course, kind of like a simulation.”

Other technicalities will help determine the winner.

“Certain criteria like speed and accuracy will determine the number of points we get,” team member Christopher Gomez said.

The winners of the competition will not walk away empty handed.

“The prize is $15,000 of scholarship money awarded to the team,” De La O said.

Both De La O and the drone team have been preparing for victory.

“We practice every day after school,” Gomez said. “Mr. De La O builds us obstacle courses to practice with.”

The obstacle courses help the team prepare for the competition.

“The courses we build are similar to the ones that will be at the competition,” Mendoza said. “We build hoops to fly in at different heights.”

There are different drones the team has been practicing with.

“We started off practicing with smaller drones, which are like the size of a baseball and moved up to bigger ones which are like the size of a basketball,” Gomez said. “The larger ones are harder to control since there are no sensors that detect when it’s gonna crash. You have to practice timing and precision a lot more than with the small drones.”

The materials for the competition were donated from local media company, TownSquare Media.

“They donated materials to each team competing,” De La O said. “The company is really in charge of organizing this whole competition.”

Team members have different reasons for participating in the competition.

“I wanted to participate in the competition because I want to be more familiar with drones,” Gomez said. They’re being used to herd cattle and help with other areas of agriculture, which is what I want to be involved with as a profession. Drones are the future.”