From FIRST Robotics to NASA Rockets: Angel Saenz’s Journey to White Sands

[NASA]

Long before joining NASA’s Test and Evaluation Support Team contract in October 2024, Angel Saenz was already an engineer at heart.

A STEM education program at his high school helped unlock that passion, setting him on a path that would eventually lead to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Angel Saenz poses in front of a composite overwrap pressure vessel outside of his office at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

NASA/Anthony L. Quiterio

The program – FIRST Robotics Competition – is run by global nonprofit, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). It was the brainchild of prolific inventor Dean Kamen, best known for creating the Segway.

In what the organization calls “the ultimate sport for the mind,” teams of students spend six weeks working under adult mentors—and strict rules—to design, program, and build industrial-sized robots before facing off in a themed tournament. Teams earn points for accomplishing various engineering feats, launching, grappling, and climbing their way through the obstacles of a game that’s less football and more American Ninja Warrior.

Competing during the 2013 and 2014 seasons with the White Sands-sponsored Deming Thundercats, Saenz said FIRST was a link between abstract mathematical ideas and real-world applications.

“Before joining FIRST, equations were just something I was told to solve for a grade, but now I was applying them and seeing how they were actually useful,” he said.

By turning education into an extracurricular activity as compelling as video games and as competitive as any varsity sport, FIRST completely reshaped Saenz’s approach to learning.

“There are lots of other things kids can choose to do outside of school, but engineering was always that thing for me,” he said. “I associate it with being a fun activity, I see it more as a hobby.”

That kind of energy—as any engineer knows—cannot be destroyed. Today Saenz channels it into his work, tackling challenges with White Sand’s Composite Pressure group where he tests and analyzes pressure vessel systems, enabling their safe use in space programs.

“Having that foundation really helps ground me,” he said. “When I see a problem, I can look back and say, ‘That’s like what happened in FIRST Robotics and here’s how we solved it.’”

Deming High School teacher and robotics mentor David Wertz recognized Saenz’s aptitude for engineering, even when Saenz could not yet see it in himself.

“He wasn’t aware that we were using the engineering process as we built our robot,” Wertz said, “but he was always looking for ways to iterate and improve our designs.”

Saenz credits those early hands-on experiences for giving him a head start.

“It taught me a lot of concepts that weren’t supposed to be learned until college,” he said.

Armed with that knowledge, Saenz graduated from New Mexico State University in 2019 with a dual degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Now 28 years old, Saenz is already an accomplished professional. He adds White Sands to an impressive resume that includes past experiences with Albuquerque-based global manufacturing company Jabil and Kirtland Airforce Base.

Though only five months into the job, Saenz’s future at White Sands was set into motion more than a decade ago when he took a field trip to the site with Wertz in 2013.

“The kind invitations to present at White Sands or to take a tour of the facility has inspired many of the students to pursue degrees in engineering and STEM,” Wertz said. “The partnership continues to allow students to see the opportunities that are available for them if they are willing to put in the work.”

In a full-circle moment, Saenz and Mr. Wertz recently found themselves together at White Sands once again for the 2024 Environmental, Innovation, Safety, and Health Day event. This time not as student and teacher, but as industry colleagues in a reunion that could not have been better engineered.

David Wertz and Angel Saenz attend White Sand’s Environmental, Innovation, Safety, and Health Day event on October 31, 2024.

The 2025 FIRST Robotics World Competition will take place in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center from April 16 to April 19. NASA will host an exciting robotics exhibit at the event, showcasing the future of technology and spaceflight. As many as 60,000 energetic fans, students, and industry leaders are expected to attend. Read more about NASA’s involvement with FIRST Robotics here.

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