Oxford to host 200 students competing in international robotics event
Frank Speziale photo
OXFORD – The second annual RoboRAVE New York at Oxford Academy High School will take place Saturday, April 6 featuring robotics teams from across the world as well as a number of local schools.
After the inaugural RoboRAVE New York in Oxford last year was a success with 60 participants and a growing sense of interest in robotics locally, the international event will return next weekend with about 200 participants from 60 teams, including teams from Egypt, France, Turkmenistan, and Canada.
The second RoboRAVE New York will kick-off with a brief opening ceremony at 8:30 a.m., followed by challenges throughout the day that will lead up to a closing awards ceremony after scoring is completed around 4 p.m.
The event will see students compete in a number of robotics categories such as a-MAZE-ing, Fire Fighting, Jousting, and SumoBot. New at this year’s event, a parliamentary debate will take place during the competitions on the topic of artificial intelligence: job creator or job destroyer?
Oxford educator and RoboRAVE New York co-founder Mark Muller said he’s thrilled at how well the event has been received in the community and in the world. It all started as a way to engage students while providing them the skills necessary to be an asset in the workforce when they graduate.
“We offer a robotics and coding class in Oxford,” said Muller. “The first year we offered it, last year, we had five students. This year I have 27. And companies love it because some of the programming skills are on the board that they use on their machinery. So it’s a win-win for everybody.”
This year’s RoboRAVE New York is supported by Southern Tier 8, which brought the event a $30,000 Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant.
“How [Southern Tier 8] sees this is that this improves the regional workforce,” said Steve Palmatier, Workforce and Economic Development Liaison at Commerce Chenango, and who Muller said was instrumental in receiving the grant.
“It helps with coding, because a big piece of the robotics program is coding, and just problem solving. That’s what our local manufacturers are really looking for today.”
In addition to the teams coming to compete, Muller said others are coming just to spectate the event in the hopes of replicating their own. Also slated to be in attendance is RoboRAVE International Director Russ Fisher-Ives.
As for local teams, students from Oxford, Unadilla Valley, Gilbertsville-Mt. Upton, Greene, Chenango Valley, and Laurens will be competing.
The event will also be an opportunity for students in attendance to meet and form relationships with students from other countries and cultures. New this year, Muller and Palmatier said, is some students have been designated as ambassadors, who have researched a specific country and its culture, and they will be spending the day with the students from that country.
“In a rural community like this, you don’t really get to interact with people from other countries. And yet our companies, many of our companies here, are global,” said Palmatier. “We thought that that was just a tremendous opportunity to extend cultural literacy in a fun way. And the kids ate it up, the kids are just all excited about doing it.”
For more information about next Saturday’s event, visit www.roboraveny.org.
OXFORD – The second annual RoboRAVE New York at Oxford Academy High School will take place Saturday, April 6 featuring robotics teams from across the world as well as a number of local schools.
After the inaugural RoboRAVE New York in Oxford last year was a success with 60 participants and a growing sense of interest in robotics locally, the international event will return next weekend with about 200 participants from 60 teams, including teams from Egypt, France, Turkmenistan, and Canada.
The second RoboRAVE New York will kick-off with a brief opening ceremony at 8:30 a.m., followed by challenges throughout the day that will lead up to a closing awards ceremony after scoring is completed around 4 p.m.
The event will see students compete in a number of robotics categories such as a-MAZE-ing, Fire Fighting, Jousting, and SumoBot. New at this year’s event, a parliamentary debate will take place during the competitions on the topic of artificial intelligence: job creator or job destroyer?
Oxford educator and RoboRAVE New York co-founder Mark Muller said he’s thrilled at how well the event has been received in the community and in the world. It all started as a way to engage students while providing them the skills necessary to be an asset in the workforce when they graduate.
“We offer a robotics and coding class in Oxford,” said Muller. “The first year we offered it, last year, we had five students. This year I have 27. And companies love it because some of the programming skills are on the board that they use on their machinery. So it’s a win-win for everybody.”
This year’s RoboRAVE New York is supported by Southern Tier 8, which brought the event a $30,000 Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant.
“How [Southern Tier 8] sees this is that this improves the regional workforce,” said Steve Palmatier, Workforce and Economic Development Liaison at Commerce Chenango, and who Muller said was instrumental in receiving the grant.
“It helps with coding, because a big piece of the robotics program is coding, and just problem solving. That’s what our local manufacturers are really looking for today.”
In addition to the teams coming to compete, Muller said others are coming just to spectate the event in the hopes of replicating their own. Also slated to be in attendance is RoboRAVE International Director Russ Fisher-Ives.
As for local teams, students from Oxford, Unadilla Valley, Gilbertsville-Mt. Upton, Greene, Chenango Valley, and Laurens will be competing.
The event will also be an opportunity for students in attendance to meet and form relationships with students from other countries and cultures. New this year, Muller and Palmatier said, is some students have been designated as ambassadors, who have researched a specific country and its culture, and they will be spending the day with the students from that country.
“In a rural community like this, you don’t really get to interact with people from other countries. And yet our companies, many of our companies here, are global,” said Palmatier. “We thought that that was just a tremendous opportunity to extend cultural literacy in a fun way. And the kids ate it up, the kids are just all excited about doing it.”
For more information about next Saturday’s event, visit www.roboraveny.org.
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