Golden Isles Career Academy

Golden Isles Career Academy Places 1ST at Lowndes VEX Robotics Qualifier.

VEX Robotics Team On Its Way to World Competition

Brunswick, January 25, 2010—The Golden Isles Career Academy’s (GICA) Engineering and Manufacturing students made a ‘clean sweep’ Saturday at the VEX Robotic Clean Sweep Competition in Valdosta, GA, where the 9-member team won 1st place.

“Our team held 1st place all day,” said Patrick Gunter, Engineering and Manufacturing Instructor, who notes the success of the students was due to many hours of preparation. The VEX Robotics competition entitled, “Clean Sweep,” sponsored by Innovation First, Inc., is the next generation of educational robotics competitions. The purpose of these competitions is to address the shortage of students choosing to become scientists, engineers and problem solvers using technology. Mr. Gunter notes, “There just aren’t enough high school students choosing technology-related majors when going to college. Most students who would qualify to major in Engineering lack interest in the field. Robotics has a strong appeal to today’s students, and these competitions use robotics as a very powerful platform to attract students to the study of science and technology.”

The GICA Robotics team, comprised of Sean Metcalf, GA senior; Dominic Clarke, GA senior; and Luke Barrow, GA junior; Joshua Francis, BHS senior; Zachary Bennett, BHS junior; Justin Adams, BHS junior; Carla Verduzco, BHS junior; Megan Leggett, BHS sophomore; and Frank Knight, BHS sophomore, competed against 14 other teams from the southeastern Georgia region for a guaranteed spot to compete in the world competition.

The VEX Robotics World Championship is a gathering of top robotics teams from around the world, including China, Korea and India, to celebrate their accomplishments and compete with and against the best of the best. The 2010 VEX Robotics World Championship will include top teams from approximately 150 VEX Robotics Competition tournaments and will be held in Dallas TX, April 22-24, 2010.