KCVI Robotics Team Appears on CNN

Published on: 2011/05/13 - in Featured Science & Tech

This week, Kingston Collegiate & Vocational Institute’s “K-Botics team 2809” appeared in a CNN.com photo slide show promoting a documentary airing this weekend.

The slide show features photos  from the FIRST robotics competition covered in a segment of “Don’t Fail Me: Education in America” hosted by Soledad O’Brien.

The Kingston high school team took part in that competition last month and are featured in the eighth photo, with the caption:

“Team 2809 is from Kingston, Ontario and took pride in how colorful its robot was.  This year, the robot and all the others had to hang plastic shapes on a grid in a limited period of time.”

According to their website, K-Botics is an extracurricular program at Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute where students design and build a robot from scratch to participate in a game created by FIRST.

KCVI's Kbotics in CNN slideshow (click to view)

The game, which changes every year, is not only played by hundreds of robotics teams from around the world, it is also the training ground for the engineers of the future.

FIRST is described as an international organization created to inspire young people to pursue a field in engineering. Their ultimate goal is “to transform culture, making science, math, engineering and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.”

The KIngston team credits a number of local sponsors and mentors for their assistance, including Transformix Engineering and Queen’s University.

Don’t Fail Me: Education in America”  airs on CNN at 8 p.m. ET and PT this Sunday May 15, and at at 8 p.m. ET and PT on May 21. [trailer video]

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Photos / Screencaps: “K-Botics Recognition Assembly Video – April 2011” video