STEMSpotlight

La Porte ISD robotics teams compete in 6th annual event

Thirty teams with more than 100 students competed in the district’s 6th Annual Battlebots competition in April at La Porte High School. The events included a Robot Design Challenge, and two Programming Challenges. Siblings were invited to participate in the Robotics Playground, where they made Bristle Bots and interacted with the Dash Robots that are present in every STEM lab. Event judges included several members of the La Porte Education Foundation, and more than 24 educators and community members volunteered. After the event it was announced that the Foundation would fully fund a special grant request submitted last summer to provide two additional Spike Prime robots per campus. Also competing in Channelview in April was the La Porte High School Robotics Team - The Spicy Chihuahuas. This is the first year the high school has competed in robotics in the FIRST Competition. Texas is a nationally ranked state in FIRST, with competitors consistently competing in and winning the international competition. This first year, the team placed 21st out of 34 teams and won the coveted Jack Kamen Imagery Award, which celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration of machine and team appearance.