Zanesville City Schools’ Robotics Programs Will Compete in the Worlds
ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Schools are trying to figure out ways that encourage students to embrace STEAM education and Zanesville is ahead of the curve with their extracurricular robotics program. Students from the Zanesville High School and John McIntire Elementary robotics programs have advanced from their state level competitions to the World competition that will be held next week in Dallas, Texas.
John McIntire Elementary School Robotics Team Coach Jonathan Cranz aids the students with his engineering, programming and mechanical knowledge so that they can build a more efficient and better functioning machine.
“It really teaches an awful lot, a lot more than I thought it did,” Cranz said. “In the competitions they have to be able to speak with the judge. They have to use their notebooking that they need to do every day. So it really encompasses a lot of physical building, programming, social skills, it’s really amazing what all these kids do with this robot and within this program.”
Each team member chooses a position that can best be served by their skill sets and fill that role to allow the team to accomplish as much as they can. Zanesville High School Sophomores Dhruv Patel and Karter Bludnick talked about how they’ve participated in the program since elementary school and built a camaraderie by preparing, traveling and competing similar to traditional sports programs.
“Ever since we were little, like 6th grade, we qualified for Worlds for the first time. We were pretty excited about it and went and we had a blast. And then we went into middle school with the same competitiveness from the previous years and we qualified then too in 8th grade and now we’ve qualified in high school and it just feels like time flies and we’ve been having fun ever since 5th grade.” Bludnick said. “Yeah it’s like basketball, football, like you have your regular matches at tournaments and you go to other schools to compete. It’s like that and you verse against other schools so you get to a higher level and verse in higher level competitions,” Patel added.
Both Robotics teams will travel to Dallas, Texas to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championships and reveal how STEAM education is being accomplished in Zanesville, Ohio.
STEAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.
