Newcastle Robotics Team Places Second in World Competition

Lunar Kitties — a team from Newcastle High School Robotics — placed second in the Turing subdivision of the 2019 FIRST Championship in April. The worldwide robotics competition, held in Houston, brought more than 15,000 students ages 6-18 from 40 countries together to put their innovation skills to the test. The two-part event celebrated the conclusion of the space-themed robotics season.

"I am extremely proud of the work all of our robotics students put in to creating their robots," said program director David Stewart.

The Lunar Kitties team put in long hours and were very creative in the production of their robot.

According to the FIRST Championship press release, more than 33,000 people attended the four-day competition, the world’s largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for students.

While Stewart provides support to the students in the robotics program at Newcastle, he said the creations are authentically their own, not his. [5823400702]

"The students come up with the initial design but sometimes need training with the tools," he said. "They design, plan, construct and operate their robots."

Thanks to community partnerships and sponsorships, Newcastle is able to support about 110 high school and middle school students participating in robotics.

"We've been involved in robotics in some capacity for over 10 years," Stewart said. "The more sponsors we have, the more elaborate robots we can make and the more competitions we can enter. It's a great way to put our little town on a world map." Stewart said larger robots cost about $10,000 to build and $5,000 to enter into competitions. Thanks to a corporate sponsorship from Boeing, among others, they're able to continue creating new robots.

"I always like to challenge the students to take apart their robots and find ways to improve them when they rebuild them," Stewart said. "It helps them utilize those STEM subjects in a hands-on way."