thedailycitizen.com – Searcy Daily Citizen

By Ally Randolph
arandolph@thedailycitizen.com

The Bradford School District raised enough money to expand its robotics program this year, increasing to three teams with five students each, with one elementary and two middle-school level, after its first year in the Elementary and Middle School VEX Robotics program was a huge success, according to teacher Jackie Gray.

Both VEX IQ teams went to the state competition at Arkansas Tech University, and the elementary students went all the way to the world competition in Lousville, Ky., under the mentorship of their Gray, Tabitha Owens and Eric Stevens.

The elementary and middle school teams of four students each were started up for the 2018-19 school year with grant money from the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation.

The three teachers were present with the new 2019-20 team of elementary students at the regular Bradford School Board meeting last week to present their accomplishments to the board.

Owens said that last year they applied for the grants and, out of the 66 schools that applied, they were one of 25 that made it. Owens then received training to be able to lead the robotics program and, realizing she could not do it on her own, got help from Gray and Stevens.

“We went through our first competition thinking, ‘Well, if we just don’t get last, we’re doing great.’ We got first place with the elementary team,” she said.

Gray said the middle school team was “amazing” as well at its first competition at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, coming in second as fifth- and sixth-graders who were competing mainly against seventh- and eighth-graders. “We did that well; we were blown away,” she said.

Both teams qualified for the state competition in Russellville, which Gray said was “a big eye-opener” where they were able to see how everything ran.

“Our middle school team struggled throughout the day to get their robot to do what it needed to do, but our elementary team, we ended up winning the design award,” Gray said. “That’s defined as the most effective and efficient robot design process. So they look at your engineering notebook, and they interview the students about the process and everything.”

She said the students interviewed well and that award qualified the team to go to the world competition in Louisville.

“There are a little over 400 teams that go to worlds. There’s 30 nations,” she said. “It was just a very cultural experience for our kids at Bradford. It was more than just a competition.”

Owens said that at one point, Bradford’s team had the highest score of any Arkansas team. Gray said that the team was 72nd out of 418 teams in the world.

“I was very proud of them,” Gray said of both teams. “Once we started working and I saw how driven they were, it didn’t shock me that we went to state, and I knew going into the finals at state, I knew we had a chance, and just knowing we had a chance and this being our first year, that just washed over me. Like, wow, these kids really put their hearts into this.

“They were definitely a good group of kids, very driven. And they pushed their way through a lot of technical difficulties,” she said.

Four of the students who competed last year are continuing with the program this year and came to the board meeting to share their experiences.

“I learned better teamwork skills,” Jaiden Everhart said. “I also learned way more about coding, because we have to code the robot to do it autonomous. It has to run on its own, do a program and run through a course, and that adds to our score at the end.

“I learned that hard work pays off because we worked really hard to get to world. I wrote some things down also about why I want the program to continue into high school. I want it to continue into high school because it challenges me to be better. And because there’s still so much more that we can learn from robotics. I want to be a mechanical engineer and this is one of the things that’s gonna help me get there.”

Hannah Osborne, Carter Easter and Destini Rowe also shared that they were challenged, learned more about working with other teams and enjoyed experiencing new things and places.

Owens said the district would be looking into grants this year to help with starting the same program for the high school, including a grant called Project Lead the Way.

Gray said that she and Blair Berry, a fifth-sixth-grade math teacher, would prepare themselves to take the Arkansas Computer Science Specialist training certification endorsement to add to their licensure to be able to teach the high school students as well.

She added that Stevens attended the High School Computer Science Certification Preparation and can now teach any high school computer science course. “He also plans to add his 528 computer science endorsement by the year 2021.”

“We want to break out to have more things available for our students to do. It’s one of those things that makes kids want to go to school and do well and do well in their other classes,” Owens said.

“We’re just very proud of them, and we wanted you guys to know what’s going on with the program and where we’d like to see it go, and we’d like to see it grow. I would like it one day where I don’t have to turn kids down to be on a team.”

Gray said she knows “for a fact” that there are many high school students that are interested in the program. “They’re looking down at us like ‘Man, why didn’t you have that when we were there?’ I have them tell us that all the time.”

“We would like to see us start the high school program as soon as possible, but the funding is always an issue for any school: ‘Where are you going to get thousands of dollars for a new program?'” Gray said.

If they can get the grants, she said it might be possible to have one high school team this year, but their overall goal for this year is to obtain the funds to start with more than one robot at the high school next year.

“The high school VEX level is a little bit more expensive to get started in,” she said. “Our vision is to have this as an activities class on Friday with a full VEX curriculum and robotics class for the elementary and have at least three or four robots available for the high school team to get started. That’s our goal, and that’s why we presented it to the board because they can always help.”

Superintendent Billy Burruss expressed to the kids at the meeting just how proud of them the School Board was. “You’re real good students from Bradford School. We appreciate all your hard work.”

“I would love to put it out there for other schools in the area that might be interested in VEX IQ,” Gray said.

Her students are eager to share ideas and help other students in the area get started with the program, she said. “So we could have some league play here in White County where we can go practice with other teams and work together with other people and help out with their planning skills..

“We have so many neighboring schools that could benefit from this program. My students want to jump out there and help mentor their kids to get this started. We would like to see everybody get fired up. It’s really good for the kids.”

Gray said for anyone who is interested in working with Bradford students to email her through her contact form in the staff directory at Bradford School District’s website.

Bradford School District

What: Expands robotic teams to three teams

How: Raised money to add second team at middle school

Why: Successful first year in Elementary and Middle School VEX Robotics program