Our middle and high school aged students recently participated in two different State Championships and they won them both.
Back in September, three teams formed here at GEARS to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge. The students were challenged to design, build and program a robot within certain size constraints that could perform specific tasks on the game field. They learned CAD (computer-aided design) software to help them with the design, worked with small metal working tools for the fabrication and became very proficient at programming their creations in Java.
FIRST Tech Challenge requires that students not only learn the skills, but that they document their progress along the way. This documentation is organized in an Engineering Notebook that is reviewed by judges at the competitions. Finally, they are encouraged to share information about the program with the general public and with professional engineers. These outreach events are organized and managed by the students and documented in their notebooks as well.
After all of this work, the teams were ready to compete. They attended multiple Regional Qualifiers throughout Indiana and Ohio, starting in mid-December. Indiana held 5 Qualifiers to determine the top 32 teams from the 67 that participated this season. Ohio held 6 events for their 96 teams. Through these Qualifiers, one team from GEARS advanced to the Ohio State Championship and all three advanced to the Indiana State Championship.
The Ohio State Championship was held on February 11. Team 9789 TOXIC won the top judged award, the Inspire Award, for their Engineering Notebook and overall robot design. The Indiana State Championship was held on February 25. Team 9790 Vier Left aligned with Team 9789 TOXIC to win the robot game. As a result of these honors, both teams have been invited to attend the North Super Regional in Iowa on March 30.
Rookie Team 12014 Fire Wires also competed at the Indiana State Championship and earned Finalist Alliance in the robot game. They had a fantastic rookie year and look forward to bettering their skills next season. TOXIC and Vier Left are participating in their second year of competition. TOXIC advanced to NSR last year as well as the World Championship and the Asia-Pacific Invitational.
GEARS is dedicated to encouraging students in 2nd-12th grade to challenge themselves to become better problem solvers and critical thinkers. We use LEGO Education curriculum for the younger students and have competitive robot programs for 4th graders on up. Our FIRST LEGO League Jr. spring program is starting on March 12. And our Spring Break camps are planned for April 3-7. Visit our website for more information.
