Middle school students on VEX Robotics Teams traveled to Milwaukee on December 3 to observe the 2006 WIRED (Wisconsin Institute for Robotics in Education) Robotics Challenge, where more than 24 high school teams competed with robots they designed and built. Participating students learned robotics in a setting designed to make science, math and engineering as cool for kids as sports.
Oak Park students were inspired. One student remarked, “It was awesome. They had lots of cool robots that gave us lots of ideas. We asked lots of questions about their strategies and how they made things work.”
The Brooks and Julian VEX Robotics students put their inspiration into action during the two schools’ head-to-head robot competition on February 21. Ten project teams from Brooks and Julian designed and built robots that battled in an arena built by the teams. Tim Walsh, science teacher who leads the Julian program with Bob Parks, says, “The kids love it. They are very enthusiastic. They are having a lot of fun as they get ready for the competition.”
