Area Students Recognized for State Robotics Competition at Rupp Arena April 18

Paducah, KY (04/28/2019) — Area students in elementary, middle and high school competed in the 2019 state Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) Robo Challenge Extreme tournament (RCX) in Rupp Arena April 18.

Across Kentucky 11 regional tournaments send teams to the state competition in Lexington. The students from western Kentucky were part of six teams who advanced to the state tournament by placing either first and second in their respective age groups from the West Kentucky RCX Regional Tournament held earlier this year on the campus of West Kentucky Community and Technical College. The regional event was sponsored by the college and its Challenger Learning Center at Paducah.

In the high school category of 18 teams, Calloway County's 4-H SPARC came in first with the homeschoolers from Cedars of Lebanon Christian Academy's Circuit Smart taking second place.

Homeschooled students from Concinnity Academy's Robofury won second place and Lyon County Robotics: Varsity won fourth place in the middle school category. Twenty-two teams competed in that category.

The robotics team from Lyon County Elementary placed 11th and Clark Elementary School's STEMnadoes placed 19th in the elementary school category, which also consisted of 22 teams.

"We are very proud of the teams from western Kentucky who competed at the state robotics tournament," said Mellisa Duncan, WKCTC's robotics regional tournament co-organizer and Challenger Learning Center at Paducah (CLC) director. "Congratulations to all the students and their coaches. They represented our side of the state well."

RCX is part of the Kentucky Department of Education's STLP that uses project-based learning principles to empower student learning with a fun approach to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) requirements in the classroom. RCX is a team activity designed to strengthen a student's teamwork, communication, computer programming and problem-solving skills.

This year's RCX tournament theme was Ua Hala Ka Hala - Island Adventure. The fun-filled challenge had teams programming their LEGO EV3 robots to complete various missions including finding food and shelter, hunting for treasure and building an escape raft. Each team received points for completed challenges within a two-minute thirty-second time frame. Placement of teams was based on the highest score received in three rounds.

"The mission of the RCX tournament is to continue to educate and build interest for area students in the STEM disciplines," said Duncan. "Our hope is to also help instill a passion for the STEM fields so more students will participate in RCX tournaments in the future."

For more information about RCX contact Mellisa Duncan at mellisa.duncan@kctcs.edu or 270-534-3097.

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