The Socorro Independent School District selects an outstanding student to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the monthly Board of Trustees regular meeting. Students chosen for this honor seize the endless opportunities SISD provides to help them excel in the classroom and beyond. Here is how one student is seizing his opportunities in Team SISD.
A fateful encounter with a remote-controlled robot at Sgt. Robert Ituarte Elementary School set Montwood High School graduate Isaiah Villarreal on a path to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a future full of endless opportunities.
After spotting the unmanned robot roaming the halls after school, Isaiah, a fifth-grader at the time, followed it to a classroom where the robotics club was building robots out of Legos. That day, Isaiah took his first step into the robotics world and never looked back.
“Seeing the robot actually move was really cool!” recalled Isaiah, who graduated in the top 10% of his class in June. “I wanted to make my own Lego robot that could move, and from then on, I’ve been building robots ever since.”
Isaiah’s participation in his elementary, middle school and high school robotics teams in the Socorro Independent School District ignited his passion for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and fueled his interest in studying aerospace engineering at MIT. In May, Villareal was awarded nearly $80,000 in scholarships to attend the prestigious university this fall.
In recognition of his outstanding accomplishments, Isaiah was selected to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the Socorro ISD’s Board of Trustees regular meeting in June.
Isaiah knew he was destined to become an MIT Beaver after touring the university during spring break. He said the robotics lab felt like home reminding him of the lab at Montwood.
“MIT is the best engineering school in the world,” Isaiah said. “The opportunities that I’ll have to learn inside and outside the classroom are tremendous, and it’s going to be a great opportunity for me to continue my passion for STEM and robotics in college and beyond.”
Isaiah’s dream is to create robots that will travel into space, such as Mars, the moon, the space station, or other future space systems.
As a first step to achieving his goal, Isaiah seized every opportunity at SISD to build and program robots and then take them to competition. He credits those experiences with preparing him for college.
In elementary school, he started participating in the district’s ROBOCOM challenge where he met Montwood math teacher and robotics coach Luis Ramirez. Ramirez said Isaiah has always been focused on MIT.
“He’s the type of student that will do good no matter what,” Ramirez said. “He’s a true role model and I just really can’t wait to see what he does in the future.”
At Montwood, Isaiah served as president of the robotics team for two years. In his senior year, he led the NASA sponsored rookie team to the FIRST Robotics Competition Robotics World Championship, where they were named First Place All-Star Rookie Team.
Isaiah will be the first person in his family to attend college, but he will not be the only one for long. His sister, Samantha Villarreal, a rising junior at Montwood High School, is following in his footsteps. Samantha said she developed a passion for robotics after watching her brother work on his robots after school.
“He’s definitely been a big role model to me,” said Samantha, who will serve as the robotic team’s president this fall. “He’s always passed down his knowledge to me, so it’s been like a good bond that we’ve been able to create with each other.”
Both siblings hope to inspire other students in SISD and outside of the district to get involved in robotics, which they said can lead to more opportunities for their education and future careers.
“(Robotics is) kind of like a sport,” Isaiah said. “There’s a time commitment, the practice time, but you still have to do your homework and everything else. It’s just really rewarding. You get to create your own thing.”
Published June 21, 2023