I am amazed at Borman Elementary’s Communities In Schools Club 21 Robotics Students. These students in the CISNT After-school Program have spent at least an hour a week for the past few months to work on building and programming their robots to prepare for a robotics competition.
Cris, Noah, Caitlin, Kalyn, Jeremiah, Lena, Putra, Jose, and Abbygail—all fourth and fifth grade students—worked diligently on their robots. Each grade level built and programmed an EV3 Lego robot. The competition consisted of them placing their robot on a table that had many different obstacles and objectives for the robot to complete, such as swinging open a door and maneuvering around objects.
When the students noticed they needed to spend extra time to prepare for the competition, they had no problem working on it more than once a week. Working overtime really helped them prepare for the meet. Everything these students did was completely on their own. A regulation of the competition was that this was a total hands-on project for the students. They received no help from the robotics teacher when building and programming their robot.
The students also had to create a presentation about their robot. Once again teachers were not allowed to help in any way. Each grade level created a tri-fold poster board that detailed their robot’s building process, programming process, and explained the tasks the robot was going to complete. Time, effort, and creativity were clearly on display in the presentations. The fifth grade Robotics Students practiced with the fourth graders on interview questions and responses. The confidence and knowledge that they developed was so cool to see!
On Saturday, December 13, the Robotics Students competed in an intense multi-school competition at the LaGrone Advanced Technology Complex in Denton, TX. From 8 am until 3 pm, they participated in a series of challenges, including a presentation and interview, robot design and four task competitions. Each task was a point, and when the time ended, the judges would discuss what they did wrong and right along with their total score. Our students’ robots competed against other elementary, middle and high schools’ robots. In fact, out of the 25 participating schools, there were only three other elementary schools that competed in the tournament.
Although we did not place in the top ten, we had a great time! Our students were nervous about competing, but after I reminded them that we were here to have fun, they lightened up and really enjoyed the experience. The most impressive part of this experience was seeing all the parents supporting their kids. They were taking pictures and recording every moment. Watch out everyone, next time our future engineers are coming for the win!
