 "Photo: Steve Lewis")
The Texas Tech Department of Electrical Engineering and the Center for Engineering Outreach hosted a robotics competition Saturday with the goal of getting elementary school students interested in engineering.
According to a press release from the Department of Electrical Engineering, the competition brought together more than 150 students from 14 Lubbock elementary schools. Students spent six weeks prior to the competition building and programming Lego robots to perform specific tasks, including moving and picking up objects.
"They programmed the robots using Lego Mindstorm and NXT kits," said Judy Patterson, a senior adviser in the Department of Engineering. "The elementary school students write the program and put it into the robot so when they press start, it does what it's programmed to do."
One of the department's goals in hosting the competition was to get Tech students involved in the community. Twenty-one engineering students helped at the various elementary schools in the weeks leading up to the competition.
"The Tech students went to the elementary schools to mentor and help while the elementary students were building and programming the robots," Patterson said.
The robotics competition originated from Boosting Engineering Science and Technology Robotics Inc., a non-profit volunteer organization whose mission is to inspire middle school and high school students to pursue careers in engineering, science and technology. According to its Web site, BEST Robotics attempts to make these fields interesting to students by organizing annual robotics competitions.
BEST has 36 regional hubs in 16 states; 24 of the hubs are operated by colleges or universities. Tech has been the home of the West Texas hub since 1995, hosting robotics competitions for middle school and high school students. In 2006, the competition was tested on third-grade through fifth-grade students for the first time. The West Texas and San Antonio hubs volunteered to try the program with elementary schools.
"This year was also those two hubs," Patterson said. "Next year we plan to expand to all 36 hubs nationwide."
Because Lubbock elementary schools participated in the competition last year, some students who competed this year were familiar with the competition.
"I have two levels," said Israel Garcia, a third-grade teacher at Harwell Elementary School. "One team is fourth-graders and one (is) fifth-graders. They did it last year. But my other team is third-graders. They're a lot of first-timers."
Garcia said the younger students were doing well, but were having some difficulties because of inexperience.
"The third-graders all started from scratch," he said. "Because they're new, they had a little problem seeing cause and effect. You know, if one thing goes wrong it will throw off something else, and they had trouble understanding that."
Miranda Marquez, a third-grade student at Maedgen Elementary School, said her team had been working on its robot every Monday after school.
"We had to build it and download stuff to the robot so it can go different ways, like backwards," Miranda said. "It's been really fun. My favorite part was mostly the computer stuff and building the robot."
Patterson said the robotics competition is a good way to get students involved because it allows them to have fun while learning.
"The goal is to inspire kids at an early age to pursue careers in science and math," Patterson said. "There's a critical shortage of engineers in the U.S., so we have to find programs like this to help meet the demand."
Garcia said the elementary school students have benefited from working with Tech students throughout the competition.
"They got to talk to people who have been successful," he said. "They developed close bonds with (Tech students). It helps students who might not have had the idea that they can go to college."
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