LAKE ORION – On Monday, May 13, 2024, Lake Orion Robotics (a.k.a. Team 302) hosted their annual RoboExpo at Lake Orion High School. Students from all-ages interested in Robotics came to LOHS to see robotics demonstrations and even control some robots.
Student representatives from Team 302 came together during the event to show off all of their robotics accomplishments from the past school year. ONTV’s Joe Johnson spoke to Bruce Stone, Lead Competition Mentor at Team 302 about the event.
“We put on an annual festival, where we bring in the entire program from kindergarten to high school to show off what the kids have done throughout the entire school year for competitive robotics,” Stone said.
So why robotics? Why should Lake Orion students care more about robotics than traditional sports like Football, Baseball or Soccer? Bruce Stone answered that exact question for ONTV.
“We are always looking for more kids, we are always looking for more engagement. We say that in robotics, this is the only sport that the kids will ever do that when they graduate, they’ll go pro – this is what they’ll do for the rest of their career.” Stone said. “All of this is about problem-solving and teamwork, learning engineering, science and technology skills… Learning how to work in a team, in a competitive environment where it’s kind of like the environment you would have at work.”
RoboExpo was a great opportunity for new students to get involved. Excited kids from all over the community came to learn more about robotics, but how soon can they get started?
“We start recruiting for the next season, right now… We recruit from middle school and elementary school because they start in the summer, right in the beginning of the school year and the high school team starts in the fall,” Stone said.
Team 302 is interested in finding new faces for their exciting robotics teams. If you or someone you know is interested, you can visit team302.org, or their Facebook at facebook.com/firstteam302/ for more information and upcoming events.
Photo by Joe Johnson
Photo by Joe Johnson