Ellis students in Robots of Tomorrow Challenge

Students from Ellis will take part in a middle school robotics challenge on April 9, 2015 to celebrate National Robotics Week and show industry leaders their visions of future technology. Students from five schools were tasked with dreaming up a robot of the future—2050, to be exact. They created narratives and drawings to describe their robots' capabilities. From these entries Ellis teachers, along with Chuck Brandt from AlphaLab Gear and Shelly Brown from Pitt's Human Engineering Research Laboritories, selected the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.
The first place winners of the Ellis challenge will go on to the National Robotics Week challenge at AlphaLab Gear in East LIberty. The initiative is meant to inspire students to engage in robotics and STEM fields.

The first place winners from Ellis were:

  • 6th grade: Hanna Barsouk, for her robot Top Head Dream Reader
  • 7th: Lela Krackow and Maggie Ginter-Frankovitch, for their robot The Off Switch
Finalists from Ellis were
  • 2nd place: Elizabeth Schaefer, for Canary (grade 6)
  • 2nd place: Alena Lateef and Claire Hughes, for Duopar (grade 7)
  • 3rd place: Catie Summers, for RyanColby5 (grade 6)
  • 3rd place: Mishon Levine and Ricarda Hill, for 4EMAGA (grade 7)
"A way to inspire students is to provide ways for them to actively learn about STEM fields outside of the classroom in a fun environment. National Robotics Week gives them that opportunity. Whether it's talking about soft robots or space robots, it's our responsibility to present technology to them...then let them be the next creators and innovators,” said Chris Atkeson, Carnegie Mellon roboticist and keynote speaker for the event.

The Robots of Tomorrow Challenge is presented by AlphaLab Gear, a program of  Innovation Works, Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute and the University of  Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories.

Click here to see more images of the Robots of Tomorrow Challenge.
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