As some of our readers who also follow our instagram may know, my dad mentors a high school robotics club. I weirdly was in Wisconsin at that same time that they ran into the former speaker of the US house of representatives, Newt Gringrich at a Barnes & Noble while giving a demonstration of their robot:
Basically, the idea between these clubs is that kids learn both programming and some engineering. My dad worked as an engineer for several decades. I think engineering is a proper vocation and I think my dad and most of his fellow engineer friends will basically always be engineers. As a result, he has been an ace mentor for these kids, being able to share his many years of experience with the next generation.
Obviously, with so much tech being used in more and more, clubs like this put kids in a good position to go further with engineering and programming in the future. Plus, it’s good to have an option beyond music and sports for after school activities.
We met another such club locally. My dad’s team got quite far this year getting all the way to #2 out of dozens of teams in a regional tournament. These kids here in Arizona are trying to fund going to an international tournament in Kentucky (nearly 1500 miles away) where they will face off against people from as far away as China.
Here is a short video of our meeting with them at a local international supermarket:
If you liked what you saw, they are on gofundme looking for help to get to the tournament. Click here to contribute.