History

It was 2011, when Stanley Mosk Elementary started an after school Lego Mindstorm robotics program with Mr. Oscar Rios and Mr. Dennis Colato, graduates of the California State University, Northridge,(CSUN) STEM Masters Program, agreed to start teaching the robotics program at Stanley Mosk with 10 teams during the first year.  With the help of Oscar and Dennis, Stanley Mosk Elementary competed at the REAL celebration robotics at Cal. Poly Pomona, led and created by Professor of Engineering, Dr. Mariappan Jawaharlal, Stanley Mosk Elementary did well for 2 straight years, placing in 3rd and 1st place respectively out of over 100 teams competing in the robot Sumo competition and along with other events. 

With little funding and lack of transportation, Oscar Rios and now new Principal, David Garringer, for Chatsworth Park ES Urban Planning/Community Development Magnet,  decided to create their own in-house robotics event for 2013 – 2014 school-year, at Stanley Mosk Elementary. They committed to conducting its own robotics challenge and named it “Rally in the Valley.”  

As part of Oscar's Master Project he wanted to turn the Rally in the Valley into a larger event that included schools who wanted to showcase students talents in robot design, modeling and programming skills. His goal was to reach out to young elementary school girls and help them embrace the love of the sciences. With the help of his professor from CSUN, Dr. Susan Belgrad encouraged Oscar to have the event at CSUN along with two other schools to participate, for the 2014-2015, school year. Those schools were Haskell Elementary and Castle Bay Elementary. The Rally in the Valley was a great success with over 100 students participating in such events as Line Follower, Obstacle Course, Team Talk and SUMO. 

Since then, the “Rally in the Valley, (RIV), Robotics Challenge & S.T.E.A.M. Expo” has been growing into a well sought after end of the school year event that has brought over 5000 spectators and over 2500 elementary school students since 2013. 

Now, we are excited to relaunch the event as a Non-Profit to help students, families, and teachers in the San Fernando Valley bring back to life the love of S.T.E.A.M. Education back into the after school programs, clubs and classroom enrichment courses. We look forward to seeing girls and boys of all ages to be part of an event that allows them to showcase their talents and hard work in the areas of science, technology, engineering, art and the sciences. With more old and new challenging events soon to come to the RIV we expect to encourage, strengthen and  and celebrate students accomplishments with a fun filled year of S.T.E.A.M. education.