La Jolla’s Muirlands Middle School, once a ‘missing link,’ revives robotics club

Students across La Jolla schools have the opportunity to participate in robotics competitions, but just two among the San Diego Unified School District’s five local public campuses have dedicated programs for it. But that is changing.

Muirlands Middle School is reviving its robotics club, filling a “missing link” after years of dormancy. Campus leaders are eyeing a return to team competitions as soon as next school year.

Muirlands will join La Jolla Elementary and La Jolla High as schools with dedicated robotics programs.

The team

Leading the way in the revival is a group that Muirlands Principal Brendan Simon describes as a “dream team” of community members.

It consists of Heather Polen, a teacher at La Jolla Elementary and the leader of its robotics group; Alan Dulgeroff, director of electric system planning for San Diego Gas & Electric; and Paul Cao, a lecturer in UC San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering Department.

Each member fulfills a different role. Simon has served as a facilitator of sorts, while Polen is working to ensure a smooth transition between elementary and middle school and continuing her usual work.

Dulgeroff is set to continue as a volunteer coach for La Jolla Elementary and lend a hand to the incoming middle school team.

“Part of my passion is giving back to the community I grew up in and giving back to the profession,” Dulgeroff said. “[But] also with the recognition that I have two young kids — 11 and 9 years old — and I see that robotics and technology are going to be a huge part of their future.”

Years ago, students could make a seamless transition from elementary to middle and high school teams. But when a group of robotics students and their parents left Muirlands Middle School around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, so did the club.

“At the time, Muirlands’ team is what we call a ‘garage team,’ which is an amazing official team. … It just usually means it’s run by parents, so often, when their kids move on, the program also moves on,” Polen said.

Having a middle school robotics club fills what Dulgeroff sees as a gap in the continuum of learning. It becomes even more important at the university level, where students are tasked with applying engineering theory, he said.

“It’s such an important continuum, so I think shoring up this gap is going to be really great,” Dulgeroff said.

Cao is working with Simon, Dulgeroff and Polen to get the team started. Beyond teaching at UCSD, he teaches after-school programs at Muirlands, LJES and Torrey Pines Elementary and runs Computer Science for Fun, or CS4Fun.

“I think my job is mostly to make sure [students] continue to love it,” Cao said. “I think that’s kind of the end goal — to make sure their passion is [continuing] on with this program.”

Much of the group’s success will be in the hands of the kids.

“When you go to competitions, adults aren’t even allowed to hold a robot,” Polen said. “We’re not allowed to carry a board for them. We’re not allowed to do anything. We really are facilitators that are there to support them [and] give them ideas. …

“It’s really neat, because they have to take ownership of it. And they do.”

Closing the gap

A sizable portion of Simon’s first year as Muirlands principal has been dedicated to learning about the school, the students, the teachers and the community. In doing so, he found out the school lacked a robotics club.

Without an official team, middle school students have been left to compete through La Jolla Elementary’s program or — for ages 14 and up — La Jolla High’s robotics team.

La Jolla Elementary currently hosts six teams of four or five members each. They encompass students from LJES, Muirlands and Bird Rock Elementary.

Having a dedicated Muirlands team will provide a more age-appropriate roster and allow middle school competitors to meet on their own schedules, Polen said.

Bird Rock is even further along in establishing its own team — it started offering a beginner’s course in November and hopes to enter competitions soon.

Torrey Pines Elementary had an after-school robotics club last school year through Chula Vista-based Smart Robotics, according to Principal Keith Keiper. This year, it connected with Wize Computing Academy, teaching elements of coding, 3D printing and more. Neither included competitions outside of school.

Simon recently took his pitch for the middle school robotics club’s revival to the Muirlands Foundation, which approved funding for the program. It got a financial head start thanks to a previous grant related to robotics.

“We’ve talked a lot about aligning what we’re doing with the high school, like with our new elective offerings,” Simon said. “This made sense in trying to make a bridge between the elementary school and all the amazing work Ms. Polen is doing [and] the high school team.”

Competitions and goals

Students in grades 4-8 begin in the FIRST Lego League, or FLL. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

In FLL competitions, students build and program Lego-based robots, develop projects that focus on real-world problems and complete missions on a themed board.

Once students start high school, they move into the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) or FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), in which they build robots from the ground up with metal, motors, electronics and custom parts. FTC has smaller team-built projects, while FRC bots are larger.

“Together, these programs create a clear pathway. Lego robotics in elementary and middle school builds the foundation, and high school robotics expands those skills into full-scale engineering,” Polen said.

Muirlands’ robotics team is set to meet from 3:10 to 5:10 p.m. Fridays, except minimum days, starting Jan. 23. It won’t immediately participate in competitions as a unit but hopes to do so in the 2026-27 school year.

Simon said the school aims to integrate robotics in its Gateway to Tech elective in the next year.

In addition to filling the gap in the robotics continuum, program leaders hope to boost the number of girls in robotics. So far, five of the 19 registered club members are girls.

“This wasn’t a female-dominated career when I was growing up, and I wish more than anything this had been something that had just even been introduced to me [when I was in school],” Polen said.

Cao agreed that “there is a gender imbalance in our field, and there’s certain efforts being taken to improve the female percentage in college. But I feel like by the time kids reach college, it’s too late. I feel like a lot of things can be done at the K-12 level.”

The leadership team also spoke of the program’s ability to foster interpersonal growth among students as well as team-building and communication skills.

“It’s so great to see our [schools] coming together and that these kids have that confidence to try something that’s really hard and is not often a first-time success,” Polen said. “The grit it takes is motivation, and there’s nothing more special than watching a kid get their first code. It’s magic.”