The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
A group of Franklin Township students in Grades 1 to 8 were able to display their robot handling skills March 22 in the second annual Robot Wars fundraiser held by the Franklin High School Robotics Club.
But organizers of the event, held in the Franklin Middle School – Hamilton Street Campus cafeteria, had an ulterior motive in bringing the students in.
The program was started to “get young kids interested in robotics so as they come up into the high school, they can transition right into joining the robotics club if they’re interested in it,” said Paul Katzer, the Robotics Club co-advisor. “It’s also a fundraiser.”
“They pay to enter a tournament, we give them a robot, and they play in the game that we designed,” he said.
Katzer said it’s important to get kids interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)-related topics as early as possible.
“If they wait too long and they start getting interested when they’re in high school, they only have four years to really compete, learn, and grow in the idea of building and engineering,” he said.
“But if they start younger … then they have more time, they’re able to start earlier, and then as they get older, they’re already ready,” he said. “They know what they’re doing, and they can compete and grow and have better engineering skills as they graduate.”
The game the students played could be called robot soccer. Two opponents faced off with their own robots and tried to push a tri-angled ball into the opposite goal. Whoever scored two goals won.
Katzer said that he’s trying to get a robotics program started in the Middle School where teams would compete in the junior division.
Here are some scenes from the day:
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