Biology

WKU’s Department of Engineering will conduct the 15^th annual Kentucky Bluegrass Robotics Competition on Nov. 8.

The competition, which is the department’s primary high school outreach effort, provides secondary school students with a challenging engineering design experience and secondary school teachers with guidance in teaching engineering topics.

Approximately 15 teams from about a dozen schools, including Greenwood, Warren Central, The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky, Hart County, Spencer County, Barren County, Graves County, Metcalfe County, Glasgow, a local home school group and Pope John Paul II from Hendersonville, Tenn., have signed up for the event. The competition will begin at 9 a.m. at the WKU Engineering and Biological Sciences building.

Teams build a robot using construction materials provided by WKU; the robots will compete against each other in a competition called “Robots for Relief” to build a device capable of helping in a natural disaster scenario.

Engineering faculty member Kevin Schmaltz is coordinating the department’s efforts, with faculty and staff members Robert Choate, Julie Ellis, Ron Rizzo and Troy Robertson providing major support for this effort. Current WKU engineering students support the set up and execution of the event, including the Engineering Honors society student section of Tau Beta Pi.

Contact: Department of Engineering, (270) 745-2461.