Eldon gears up for world championships

Eldon robotics team wins big, faces funding challenges

Eldon Upper Elementary RoboH20 team member Luke Graham demonstrates the extending arm of the team's robot as Braden Wrye helps describe the operation. The Gearheads after-school robotics program teaches children analytical thinking, creative problem and technological expertise.
Eldon Upper Elementary RoboH20 team member Luke Graham demonstrates the extending arm of the team's robot as Braden Wrye helps describe the operation. The Gearheads after-school robotics program teaches children analytical thinking, creative problem and technological expertise.

The Eldon Upper Elementary robotics team awaited the judges' decision with cinematic tension.

The group of 10- to 12-year-olds had taught their LEGO robot to drive itself. Using computer code and algebra, their automated machine ran the course as best it could, replacing a miniature prototype filteration device for municipal drainage systems. It looked like a cubic LEGO fort on wheels with a small computer inside, about the size of a Game Boy. Different attachments are added on top, such as an extendable arm, to perform the various tasks.

If brought to full scale, the Eldon students said, their project could help their city with its drainage and pollution problems. But team RoboH2O never thought they had a chance at winning the FIRST LEGO qualifying tournament in Columbia.

When the judges announced the team from Eldon had won first place and would go on to the world championship, some of the students felt like they had stepped through the silver screen as they watched their coaches cry for joy.

"I remember at the end, everyone was like, 'There's always next year,'" team member Mallory Witt said. "Then we hear our name, and we are up jumping around."

The Gearheads after-school robotics program teaches children analytical thinking and creative problem solving as well as technological expertise. After a short time in robotics, eight of its team members are considering becoming engineers. The Gearheads compete in the FIRST LEGO competition, which uses different themes to teach the importance of robotics in improving the world. This year's theme is hydrodynamics.

Sixth-grader Zachary Smithson said the program focuses on the principles of coopertition, emphasizing what different teams from various cultures can learn from each other rather than trying to beat one another in competition.

"It's working with others to make sure people aren't left out, and so you have to be supportive and make sure no one's excluded, and that goes with every team," Smithson said. "At any event that we are at, we can help other teams out, even if they are not a part of our school."

At the regional qualifying tournament, RoboH20 worked with other teams on their motors and coding.

"Yes, we are competing against each other, but we are really doing it in the spirit of kindness," RoboH20 team instructor Jerry Barsby said.

The students are nervous to compete in the world championship April 18-21 in Houston, but they are excited to meet children their age from around the world.

Eldon's Gearheads robotics program - which includes all of Eldon's robotics teams - is still only four years old, but it already has garnered success rarely experienced by small rural school districts. Barsby said Eldon is building a powerhouse robotics program from the base up.

The Gearheads are part the Learning Enriched Afterschool Program (LEAP), which offers various activities and clubs for students to take part in after the final bell, from archery to walking clubs. In the past year, the Eldon after-school program has grown by about 100 students.

But Colleen Abbott, LEAP program director and After School Network policy chair, said the federal funding that almost solely provides for these after school programs is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump proposed cutting after-school programming from the federal budget. After all the team's success in competition, the program might not have a chance to continue under the president's proposed budget unless the Gearheads find new financial support from the state or private sponsorship.

Abbott said all after-school programming has academic and personal benefits for the students, but robotics is especially helpful in building the confidence of students who are struggling to master reading and writing, as it focuses on deep thinking and learning without depending very much on language skills.

"It's one of those things where, especially in early years, if you're not good at reading, then you're just not successful as a student," Abbott said. "When you come to our program, whether it's in the morning or in the afternoon, whether it's when they are little bitty or when they are going into high school, we want them to be engaged in something and open up some other areas."

RoboH20 participated in STEM Day on Thursday at the Missouri Capitol to express the need for more after-school funding to state Legislatures. Abbott hopes Missouri lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt will help keep after-school funding in the federal budget, but she said it will be a tough fight to maintain a program that has beneficially impacted students' lives.

"To put a student through after-school for a year, it costs about $1,000," she said. "So every time they cut $1,000, when they talk about a billion dollars, that's 18,000 kids here in Missouri who would lose after-school funding. It's a big deal."