CANTON – Three students from Canton will compete to represent the United States in the World Robot Olympiad after winning the open category at the statewide competition held at Cranbrook Schools on Sept. 4.
Christopher Geng, Charles Liu and James Xue of Canton competed as the Robocruisers S team and took first place in this year?s open category competition which had the theme of ?Robots and Space.? Student teams had to design and create robots that will assist humankind in solving tasks in space.
Started in Singapore in 2004, WRO is a global LEGO Robotics competition involving nearly 20,000 middle school and high school teams from throughout the world. Each participating country has its own competition, and the best teams from 49 countries will be invited to compete at the World Robot Olympiad in the Olympic city of Sochi in Russia in November.
This is the first year the United States will be represented, and the international Robofest program at Lawrence Technological University (LTU) is the competition?s national organizer. A major goal of the competition is to provide students with a fun way to learn more about science, technology, engineering and math ? the STEM subjects.
The WRO-USA national finals will be held at the Don Ridler Field House on LTU?s campus in Southfield on Saturday, Sept. 27, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Teams are coming from New York, Oregon, California and Illinois.
?WRO is an event that brings young people from all over the world together. Teams of youngsters get the opportunity to learn more about STEM and develop their creative and problem-solving skills through various robotics challenges,? said LTU Professor CJ Chung, the founder and director of Robofest at LTU and the WRO director for the U.S.
