WKU News

WKU Engineering students, including members of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society, worked with Engineering faculty and staff to conduct the 18^th annual Kentucky Bluegrass LEGO Robotics Competition on Feb. 24 at WKU’s Engineering and Biological Sciences building.

Elementary and middle school teams were given the challenge of building an autonomous robot from LEGO Mindstorm kits to navigate two different surfaces: (1) an autonomous course to navigate a road course as quickly as possible with minimal assistance and (2) a test of quick thinking and programming skills to compete between two teams to reach a target that was moved from game to game while avoiding obstacles.

A total of 41 students competed on 15 teams in either the “Engineer-in-Training” division for Elementary School teams, or the “Professional Engineers” division for Middle School and more experienced teams. Participating schools included Drakes Creek Middle School, Old Union School, Briarwood Elementary School, Edmonson County Middle School, Johnson Family Homeschool in Bowling Green, Warren Elementary School and Moss Middle School.

More than 100 participants, teachers/coaches and family members/friends attended the competition, which kicked off in early January. Many students, coaches and parents visited the WKU Engineering building in early February to test and prepare their devices at help sessions offered by WKU Engineering.

Winning teams are:

• EIT Division — Briarwood Elementary team of Morgan Trevor, Gary Zheng and Timmy Sohn.
• PE Division — Johnson Homeschool team of Elizabeth Johnson and Claire Burklow.

Contact: John Inman, (270) 745-3048