Last week’s Seymour Community School Corp. board of education meeting had a few extra visitors in the audience, including some robots.
Shawn Mahoney, technology integration specialist for SCSC, attended the meeting at the Seymour Central Service Center.
He helps coordinate the robotics programs for Seymour schools.
“It is my pleasure to welcome some of the students on robotics teams to represent our schools tonight with a robot parade,” Mahoney said. “Our program continues to grow, and we had 96 students at competitions this year.”
He said they had new coaches at Seymour-Jackson and Emerson elementary schools and have enjoyed the growth and enthusiasm of the program.
“I love being around those students who aren’t afraid to try and that like to create. It’s wonderful,” Mahoney said.
He said Jackson County Industrial Development Corp. through the sponsorship from industry partners is very generous in helping support the robotics program.
“Every year, they donate at least $15,000 to the Seymour schools robotics program that covers things such as the registration fees and competition fees, so we’re very thankful for their funding,” he said. “Also, Seymour Community Schools pays our coaches a stipend for all the effort they put in all season.”
The robotics teams start gathering around October, and the state competition will be Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, so it’s a pretty long season, Mahoney said.
Also, the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championship, presented by the Northrop Grumman Foundation and the REC Foundation, will take place April 25 to May 4 in Dallas, Texas.
Mahoney said per capita, students’ access to robotics equipment in Jackson County leads the nation, as there are more robotics kits available to students per capita here than any other county in the United States.
“This shows the support of our community and our local schools, and it’s a pretty special deal that we have this much interest in robotics in Jackson County,” he said. “Seymour Community Schools has a lot of kids involved.”
A robotics tournament was held at Immanuel Lutheran School in Seymour the last weekend in February, and many of the local robotics teams participated.
Jamie Baker, coach of the Cortland Elementary School robotics team, said at the tournament, they have a 6-by-8 foot-field, and the game changes every year.
“This year, they had little discs the robots had to get out of dispensers scattered all over the field and try to shoot those into a goal on the other side of the field,” Baker said. “We had four teams at Cortland this year, and two of our teams finished in the top 10 in one of our tournaments, and there can sometimes be 40 to 50 teams in a competition.”
During the meeting, Mahoney presented the traveling trophy to the Cortland team for being the overall winners at the annual SCSC Robotics Showcase.
Helping out with the Emerson Elementary School robotics team is coach Sam Freeman, who also attended the meeting.
Freeman said Emerson had three teams this year, and the team that finished third in the competition was with him at the meeting.
Members present were Noah LaSpina and Bowen Addison, who drove their robot around for the school board members.
“It was a pleasure for me to coach at Emerson this year,” Freeman said.
Robotics coach Amy Jo Miller Kuzel, a Seymour Middle School and Sixth Grade Center STEM technology teacher, said the robots were taken apart, but they were able to keep some of them.
She then introduced Chance Burnside, the only member of the sixth grade robotics team present, to talk about the robot he was going to operate for the robot parade and discuss how things don’t always go as planned.
“At the tournament, we had a ton of batteries that broke, and the wire kept breaking,” Burnside said.
Kuzel said they really need new upgraded versions of the robot, but the team won the Judges Award for positivity and being able to share their experiences with other teams.
A couple of teams from Seymour Middle School also brought their robots to show off in the parade.
“This one is an advanced robot, and team member Leo Holle owns this kit,” Kuzel said. “It’s his own personal second generation kit, and on the back are license plate looking awards from all of the awards they have accumulated over the years.”
Holle then drove the robot around the floor, followed by middle school student Nikita Cox, who drove last year’s robot that earned a trip to the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas.
Kuzel said several of the students will be going to the state competition in Indianapolis this weekend.
Two members of the Seymour High School robotics team also were at the meeting with their coach, Amy Gibson.
Gibson said there are some differences between high school and middle school robotics. At the high school level, instead of being friends with everybody on the field, you’re friends with one team and competing against two others.
She said the Seymour High School robotics Team A won the Inspire Award at the VEX tournament at New Palestine High School last month.
“This is very awesome, and it was a judges award for their outlook, how they planned their robot and the things they knew about their robot,” Gibson said. “So that was very exciting for us.”
Gibson said going to high school events, people can see some of the best robots in the world from Indiana.
“One of the competitions we go to has three of the top 10 robots in the world,” she said. “We were little fish in a big pond, but it was really cool to see.”