Thirty-five competitors vied for top honors at the first Robot Extreme Challenge (RCX) recently held at West Kentucky Community and Technical College March 16.
The competition was divided into high and middle school levels with the Commonwealth Middle College at WKCTC winning the high school division. In the middle school division, Lone Oak Middle School’s “Lightning Botzz” and Heath Middle School’s “Piratechs2” won first and second, respectively. The winning middle school teams have chosen to compete in the Student Technology Leadership Program for the state RCX competition in Lexington’s Rupp Arena March 26.
Other participating teams represented middle schools from Heath, Graves, Lyon and Marshall counties.
The 2015 RCX competition was built around the theme of a “Mars Adventure.” Students imagined themselves doing the tasks of humans living on Mars and work on projects that revolve around the theme.
The Kentucky-based competition was created to help students build skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and involved participants preparing a LEGO EV3 Robot to complete as many as 13 missions. Students pre-programmed the robot to do one or more missions at a time and completed as many missions as they could in three minutes. Student teams got three tries to gather as many points from a run, and the top score from any of the runs was used to determine winners of each level.
The Lightning Botzz had the best score Monday Night with 269 out 500 possible points.
“We are proud to have been able to offer the RCX competition on the WKCTC campus for the first time,” said Bill Kunnecke, program director of the college’ science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) initiative. “We encourage the community to continue to take advantage of the many K-12 STEAM opportunities that WKCTC has to offer. Whether it be the upcoming science fair, the Challenger Learner Center Missions and camps, the LEGO robotics workshops, or the STEAM-based summer camps-- there is something for everyone who has an interest!”
For a complete list of upcoming camp opportunities, visit http://issuu.com/jblythe0001/docs/communityeducation/1
The competition was divided into high and middle school levels with the Commonwealth Middle College at WKCTC winning the high school division. In the middle school division, Lone Oak Middle School’s “Lightning Botzz” and Heath Middle School’s “Piratechs2” won first and second, respectively. The winning middle school teams have chosen to compete in the Student Technology Leadership Program for the state RCX competition in Lexington’s Rupp Arena March 26.
Other participating teams represented middle schools from Heath, Graves, Lyon and Marshall counties.
The 2015 RCX competition was built around the theme of a “Mars Adventure.” Students imagined themselves doing the tasks of humans living on Mars and work on projects that revolve around the theme.
The Kentucky-based competition was created to help students build skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and involved participants preparing a LEGO EV3 Robot to complete as many as 13 missions. Students pre-programmed the robot to do one or more missions at a time and completed as many missions as they could in three minutes. Student teams got three tries to gather as many points from a run, and the top score from any of the runs was used to determine winners of each level.
The Lightning Botzz had the best score Monday Night with 269 out 500 possible points.
“We are proud to have been able to offer the RCX competition on the WKCTC campus for the first time,” said Bill Kunnecke, program director of the college’ science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) initiative. “We encourage the community to continue to take advantage of the many K-12 STEAM opportunities that WKCTC has to offer. Whether it be the upcoming science fair, the Challenger Learner Center Missions and camps, the LEGO robotics workshops, or the STEAM-based summer camps-- there is something for everyone who has an interest!”
For a complete list of upcoming camp opportunities, visit http://issuu.com/jblythe0001/docs/communityeducation/1