Grateful To Community For Donations To Make It Possible
BY JENNIFER LIEBRUM
Bellevue’s Timmy the Bear Bots were able to raise the funds to attend the Idaho State VEX IQ Robotics Championship and traveled to Dallas, Texas, for the World Robotics International Tournament in May.
While the Blaine County Bots, Idaho’s first K-12 robotics program, has represented the state at national finals competitions numerous times over the last 20 years, this was the first time elementary-level kids were invited to the world games.
Recently retired longtime tech teacher and coach, Krista Jones’ Bellevue Elementary team won the Elementary Excellence Award, leading them to receive the invitation.
Each team had to create, calculate, diagram, design and build a working robot. The categories the teams were judged on included their teamwork, robot matches against other teams, code programming ability and driving skills.
Before leaving, Jones explained the process.
“The whole team is new to competitive robotics, but they really put their hearts into it,” Jones said. “These are amazing kids and their learning, growth and personal drive is impressive.
“The kids have worked incredibly hard all year learning all of the engineering, science, math and coding that it takes to build a working robot, and, just as important, the care it takes to grow a working team.”
The kids needed several thousand dollars to get there, which happened.
“Your kindness and generosity made it possible for us to take this amazing learning journey to compete and collaborate with robotic teams from all over the world!” Jones said recently. “This experience has truly opened all of our eyes to what world-class robotics is really like.
“We learned so many new engineering skills and designs from the other teams. We also learned how to support, plan and strategize with people who speak other languages, and how to work together eight hours each day with our own team through failure and success to always try to do our best. We worked hard to show good sportsmanship to represent the state of Idaho and the USA. It was a journey that we won’t forget. Thank you again for sponsoring us and making it happen!“
Jones, a legend in the district for innovative programming for nearly four decades, is retired this year after 36 years.