Eloisa's Journey from BHS robotics to Electrical Engineering

2021 graduate brings NASA experience back to BHS as a robotics mentor 

Eloisa Carrasco was a seventh-grader in the fall of 2015 when, at the encouragement of her parents, she attended an information session about the District 191 robotics program.

She decided to join the team and, nearly 10 years later, she’s still a part of Burnsville FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics. As a mentor, she supports the next generation of students in the program that helped set her on her academic and career path. Eloisa will graduate from the University of Minnesota in the spring with an Electrical Engineering degree and has already gained valuable work experience through two internships at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. 

“The reason I wanted to come back as soon as I graduated is because it’s a really good program and it provided me with experiences that still help me today, and the volunteers we have and the people that mentor are the reason were able to do anything, so I wanted to help give back to that,” Carrasco said. “The whole goal of teaching the next generation of students is so they become smarter than you and that’s really proven true. My students have picked up on a lot and made it to state even earlier than we did.”

Carrasco’s BHS teams won plenty of awards and made multiple trips to state, but her high school robotics experience wasn’t just about programming, design and engineering. She led the team’s documentation and outreach work and also learned valuable skills related to teamwork and communicating she still uses every day.

“Robotics really encompasses everything,” she said. “Within that one Pathway, you’re using communication skills, learning how to talk about your robot, thinking through the process, engineering, talking through a lot of problem-solving and learning how to talk about what you’re doing. Those things come up pretty often.”

As a leader in the robotics lab, Carrasco considers herself to be fairly hands-off, preferring to let students work through problems themselves for a while before stepping in to assist. As a mentor, however, she takes a proactive approach, actively connecting students with valuable opportunities in the engineering field, fostering their growth and inspiring them to future careers in STEM. She does similar work at the U of M where she’s president of the student chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. 

“Some of the students who are on my team are juniors now and they’re getting into prep for college already and they’re interested in STEM-related careers. Another student went into the same program I’m in now because we were able to have that conversation about how this experience translates into opportunities available on campus,” she said. “Robotics helped them figure that out.” 

Robotics helped Carrasco figure herself out, as well, sending her down a path that led to an interest in the STEM field and ultimately a degree in electrical engineering. Experiences in that program refined her interest even more toward biomedical engineering, specifically improving prosthetic devices, and developing new transportation technologies in the aerospace industry.

“Pathways kind of helped me narrow down what niche of a field I wanted to get into,” she said. “My emphasis has pretty much always been in hands-on experiences, in getting to actually do things. That’s what I’ve found most helpful at each step. Each step has helped prepare me and move me forward to the next one.”

Pathways in District 191

From preschool through graduation, District 191’s Pathways model provides all students with age-appropriate experiences through which they explore possibilities, develop the skills and attributes they’ll need to succeed, find their passions and prepare for their futures. 

Being a Pathways district means we:

• Remove barriers and ensure equitable access for all students,
• Center students as decision makers in their learning journeys,
• Promote a future-focused mindset, ensuring students have a plan for meeting their next challenge,
• Engage in partnerships to maximize resources and opportunities, and 
• Provide real-world benefits, including professional certifications and college credits by graduation

Learn more at pathways.isd191.org.