Robotics Competitions: Building a Generation of Innovators

Science has influenced our lives in ways our grandparents couldn’t have imagined. The technological advancements have empowered the scientific community to make more meaningful discoveries. It also provides inspiration not only to scientists but also to educators to develop, design and innovate the way we learn science and technology. This way, we prioritize learning through hands-on experience.

The emergence of robotics is a great example of how far we have come in terms of innovation. By encompassing all scientific areas, has been proven that this field impacts manufacturing, healthcare applications, transportation, and communications.

The goal is to build a robot that is an extended, intelligent tool and a partner of humans in fulfilling tasks. Over the years, robots have come into play in the mass production of goods and services, which aided men in their job.

However, robotics is still on its onset of development and as it prospers as a scientific field, the more questions arise. This is the reason why educators see the need to teach robotics and make it accessible in schools.

By incorporating mechanical engineering and computer programming, students learn to become active problem solvers through strategical and logical reasoning. also provides the students a fun and exciting way of learning science in a more practical level.

Thisalso provides the students a fun and exciting way of learning science in a more practical -hand on- level.

To cultivate innovators in our youth today, various robotics competitions allow high school students to showcase their designs and building strategies. More than learning the technical skills needed to build a robot, they also gain understanding and investigate on new technologies that will make meaningful contributions to our society.

Some of the robotics competitions we’d like to highlight are Soft Robotics Design Competition, Robofest, VEX Robotics Competitions, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). These events aim to engage students in

These events aim to engage students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), boost their interpersonal skills, and apply what they learn into something real. Each competition lets the delegates design robots for a specific purpose.

1. Soft Robotics Design Competition is an online competition which allows participants to construct wearable robotics that will assist human movement and manipulate objects.
2. Robofest is a festival of various robotics events that will stimulate learning STEM while having fun. Participants get to design, construct and program robots.
3. VEX Robotics Competition is more than just constructing robots. The participants play against each other in a game-based engineering challenge.
4. FTC and FRC are both sponsored by FIRST, which incorporates various skills in robotics for the future. The only difference is that FRC builds bigger robots and requires more time commitment. These events are huge, very exciting, and they are one of the most important exponents when talking about robotics competitions.

Student involvement in robotics competitions will not only provide them with engineering and programming skills, but it will also help them get confidence, improve critical thinking abilities, and to strengthen their teamwork capacities.

They will be able to interact with other professionals in the robotics field (networking is always important!). Once provided with enough support, these events will help us build a whole new generation of engineers, who will become the innovators and the leaders of tomorrow.

Want to hear about a genuine experience in robotics competitions? Read this guest-blog that talks about the tips of an engineer that hope to guarantee success to robotics teams in competitions!