A FAIR GAME: A LOW-COST EASILY IMPLEMENTED ROBOTICS COMPETITION LEADS TO DIVERSE ENTRANTS

Since 2006, we have run a robotics competition that attracted widespread participation (over 100 entrants) from local K-12 schools.This six-hour competition pits low-cost robotic systems built over several weeks by teams of two to four K-12 students (age range 14-18).These small, ten-inch robots come from an all inclusive, commercial kit like the ones offered from Parallax.The students implement common robotic topics such as autonomous robot navigation, localization and detection algorithms and robot design to complete engaging medically themed challenges.The challenges provide fun opportunities for students to apply science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning.This competition is designed for students with no prior engineering background and is designed to teach them basic programming and electro-mechanical design.Our robotics competition is inexpensive (the robot kits are 40% cheaper than Lego Mindstorms) and less time-consuming (for organizers and advising teachers), compared to other more publicized robotics competitions, which makes it ideally suited to attract involvement by low-income schools.For the last three years, the robotic challenge has attracted many local public schools for those very reasons.This competition was developed by a well-known robotics center with industrial partners.Its primary objective is to provide a rewarding and exciting experience that draws students into studying the STEM fields within higher education.Preliminary results from a questionnaire administered the day of the competition showed that 43% of students were more likely to go to college after participating in this event.