Lawton Public Schools (LPS) will be hosting their second Junior Robotics Competition this week. The competition will take place in the LRC gym from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 11.
Last year, students had their first opportunity to participate in a full-scale robotics competition, but this year, there is a whole new level of difficulty.
Students in this year’s competition will be tasked with completing a maze, using their robot to accumulate points and “power-ups” as they move forward.
LPS technology trainer Doris Biegler shared some insight on this year’s competition.
“They’ll be using the controller to drive the robot,” Biegler said. “But, the coding portion this year, because it’s a maze, is going to be a whole lot different for them.”
Like last year, there are three areas within the competition: coding, driving skills, and creativity. Each of these areas will test the students on what they have learned and allow them to show off their overall STEM skills, programming skills, and the ability to work as a team.
The students have been in deep preparation for the competition, each vying to take home a first-place victory and learning about programming along the way.
“We have lots of different robots that they learn to code on,” Biegler said. “We have lots of different robots like the Go Edison, Dot ‘n Dash, Sphero, and they’re all block based coding. They code all year long depending on what the teacher has them doing.”
Every elementary school at LPS is involved in the event, which is open to the public and will be live streamed on the LPSTV YouTube Channel. Families are welcome to come and cheer on their student.
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For Editors and Broadcasters: For more information, please contact Lynn Cordes at lcordes@lawtonps.org or 580-357-6900