Employee from NASA visits local robotics class

The robotics team at Rocky Mountain Middle School in Bonneville County was in for an out-of-this-world lesson Wednesday. An employee from NASA came to give the students tips on working toward a career in engineering.

Shauna Richards is a flight space systems engineer at NASA in Houston, Texas. She is in Idaho Falls visiting her family and was asked to come speak to Mark Ashment’s robotics class.

Richards shared her story of starting in her school’s robotics club, which got her into engineering. Her love for robotics turned into a few internships, which eventually turned into her career at NASA.

Richards wanted students to know that being involved in robotics at their age will help them in the future with a career in engineering.

“Just because you’re still in middle school and just because you’re still young, doesn’t mean what you’re doing right now isn’t going to have an impact on what you do for the rest of your life, because it absolutely did for me,” said Richards.

She also wanted to emphasize to the student’s that they “always needed to try, even if they failed.”