Hundreds of students, whole lot of robots at Folsom Lake College for huge STEM event

There were hundreds of high school students and a whole lot of robots milling around the gym at Folsom Lake College (FLC) on Sunday, Jan. 26. It was all for the first Tech Challenge Qualifying Tournament, hosted at FLC. The tournament is a robotics competition for high schoolers, which is organized by First Robotics, a global nonprofit organization that provides robotics programs for school-aged students. The programs are designed to inspire more students to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). The First Tech Challenge categorizes itself as "the ultimate sport for the mind." In these events, high school-aged student teams compete against each other as they design, build and program robots with provided robot building kits. About 28 high school teams from the Sacramento region to the Bay Area, Fresno and other vicinities competed in the tournament hoping to advance to the regional tournament. A student team which calls itself Metal Maniacs #20163 hosted the tournament in addition to a FIRST Lego League Explore event for second- through fourth-grade aged students. The student volunteers from Metal Maniacs #20163 worked more than 13 hours straight to host the huge event; the team is made up of students from Folsom High, Vista del Lago and Cottonwood Charter. Metal Maniacs #20163 says its goal is to build a robust STEM and robotics education pipeline in the region. Based on the huge participation in the tournament at FLC, it appears many students in the region are eagerly becoming involved in STEM.