CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – On Saturday, Military Magnet Academy hosted middle and high school robotics teams for the FIRST® Tech Challenge qualifying tournament.
160 middle and high school students across the eastern part of the state competed in a qualifying robotics tournament, part of the FIRST® Tech Challenge.
“So today we are participating in the FIRST Tech Challenge South Carolina East Qualifying Tournament and the theme for this season is Freight Frenzy,” said CTE Instructor Carla Clark. “We participate under FIRST®, it’s STEM [with] robotics and engineering – the students come in, they customize or build the robots that they design, they program, they collaborate, they work together.”
Saturday’s Freight Frenzy and Tech Challenge is offered by the global nonprofit FIRST® robotics community that helps young people to succeed in their futures. In addition, the mission of FIRST® is to make STEM programs available for students, up to age 18.
Clark also mentions that the tournament is a great way for promoting STEM in the community. “It’s a great opportunity for the students and a great opportunity to bring awareness to the community.”
In the FIRST® Tech Challenge, teams work together to build and program robots using an Android-based computer system by programming through Java, and other applications. In addition to building and programming robots, students also learn skills in fundraising, designing and marketing, and community outreach.
Competing teams will advance to the FIRST® Tech Challenge South Carolina State Championship that will be hosted in Columbia, February 25-26. The two top teams from the state championship will move on to the FIRST® Championship in Houston, hosted in April.
“A few of the awards that students are able to win are the Inspire Award, the Think Award, and the Connect Award,” says Clark. “The Connect Award is a really great award that the students [receive] by promoting STEM within the school, making sure they’re doing outreach, just bringing that awareness to the community.”
Students participating in the FIRST® Tech Challenge are qualified for over $80 million in college scholarships.
More information on FIRST® can be found here.
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