High schoolers from near and far show off STEM skills at Utah robotics competition

By Lucy Nelson

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    SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (KSTU) — Forty-four high school student teams from Utah and nine other states showed off their STEM skills at the annual Utah Regional FIRST Robotics Competition.

It’s a big deal for teams like the Robo Hawks from Mount Pleasant, who had to drive 100 miles to Salt Lake City to purchase pool noodles for their machine.

“In fact it’s so rural we had to source a lot of our parts from just a local hardware store to build our robot,” said Robo Hawks member Coda Shove.

Teams had only eight weeks to create their robots and spent several hours after school crafting them.

“It’s like nothing else I’ve ever experienced,” said Maya Nelson with the Ames Amperes, “It has the energy and the competitiveness of a sport with the creativity and an intellectual engagement of making something and there’s so much freedom in what you can do.”

Winners or losers, the kids say it’s a great platform for them to learn all sorts of skills.

“I think what it emphasized for me is how important team dynamics are. Time management, team management, and just interpersonal relationships can make or break a team,”

“Just get into STEM, man. It’s super fun, there’s a lot of competitions, super fun stuff, it’s not all classwork boringness,” emphasized Shove.

This year’s game called ‘Charged Up,’ profiled the importance of renewable energy. It involved robots controlled both autonomously and by student operators that had to move game pieces onto docking stations on the playing field.

Winning teams from the weekend will move on to the FIRST national championship held April 19-22 in Houston.

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