Davie County STEM Education in collaboration with Wake Forest Baptist Health ~ On Friday, April 27th, from 4-7 pm, teams from all 6 Davie County elementary schools and all 3 middle schools will converge at Davie County High School for an afternoon and evening of friendly but fierce competition! Each team has been issued 10 logistics challenges with a hospital theme developed in collaboration with North Carolina Baptist Health to celebrate the building of a new hospital in the county.
Engaging Curriculum with Cutting Edge Science and Real World Relevance
Teams will program LEGO NXT robots to do such things as slide “kidney stones” off a human image in the operating room and then administer Lego “medicine” to the patient after surgery. Each challenge completed will earn the teams designated numbers of points as they compete head-to-head in a double elimination tournament. At the end of the evening, four teams, two from the elementary bracket and two from the middle school bracket, will emerge as champions and runners up. The top two of these teams will then compete for the Grand Champion trophy.
Students solve increasingly complex problems
The programming skills students develop through these sets of challenges are important and impressive. Learning the program language to make Lego NXT robots move and perform in the fashion students desire requires technical skills and the development of logical thought about the progression of logistics challenges.
At least as importantly, students develop sets of soft skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. They learn to budget time, prioritize the importance of completing one challenge versus another, work with their peers to negotiate who completes which task and when, and to work their way through increasingly complex problems one step at a time
Davie County Schools Teaching 21st Century Skills
The Davie County Robotics Skills Challenge Series was designed in order to provide a venue for students to program NXT robots on the spot in order to complete challenges utilizing a number of key skills.
In addition to an introduction to object based programming, Davie County students are learning soft skills such as problem solving, time management, critical thinking, strategic thinking, cooperative effort and teamwork, and establishing priorities.
Join Davie County students and share the thrills as students watch something they have created come to life in a robot at this free indoor event at Davie County High School from 4-7 pm on Friday, April, 27th..
Additional Resources:
Davie County STEM Education
Davie County Schools
