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The Apollo Middle School Robotics Team won the Excellence Award in a VEX robotics competition on Jan. 20. The team was among the top four teams in the competition and earned a position in a state competition in Tampa in February.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row custom_padding=”0px|0px|0px|0px” _builder_version=”3.0.95″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.95″]“We are very excited. We had zero expectation coming into the tournament,” said Diana Dworzan, a science teacher at Apollo who runs the robotics team. “This is so new for us. We came to the tournament because we wanted to observe and built a better robot and a better program.”
The teams had to design, build and program a robot.
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The robots competed by moving cones into a goal area. A student had to drive the robot during the competition. Joseph Paez was a driver for the Apollo team. “I enjoyed being a part of the competition,” he said.
Students from the Hollywood Hills High School robotics program also participated and entered two teams. Deb Houts, a teacher at Hollywood Hills High, said she was very proud of the performance of her girls’ team. “You need a creative mind to do well in robotics,” she said.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_image src=”https://hollywoodgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IMG_6647.jpg” _builder_version=”3.0.95″][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_image src=”https://hollywoodgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IMG_6653.jpg” _builder_version=”3.0.95″][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.95″]Kelsey Haynes, a member of the Hollywood Hills girls team said, “I like coding and I like working with robots,” she said.
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Wenjing Feng who is also a member of the girls’ team, said, “I enjoyed the competition and I like robots.”
Matthew Tindell, a member of the other Hollywood Hills team, said “This is fun and exciting.” His teammate Adrian Soriano said he enjoyed the competition and likes to work with robotic technology.
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A growing number of schools in Hollywood are developing robotics programs. The students enjoy the opportunity to work on hands-on projects and to develop their technical skills. The competition is part a program made possible by a $227,000 grant awarded to the Broward County Public Schools by the REC Foundation and NASA. The grant provides a robot, team registration funding and teacher professional development to participating schools. During the VEX Robotics Qualifying Tournaments, students participate in action-packed challenges where they compete with their VEX robots. The team field challenges allow them to show their skills operating and programming their robots.
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