HOPKINSVILLE, KY (CHRISTIAN COUNTY NOW) – Robotics scholars at Gateway Academy to Innovation and Technology are putting their minds together to compete with teams from across the world. With the support and guidance of their teacher Ben Smith, these close-knit teams are given the opportunity to rocket past their potential in this student led program.
“We are more so like a family now than we are classmates because we all know when something needs to get done and how to get it done,” said Jesse Gilkey, a junior at Gateway on the STEM/Engineering pathway.
Jesse told Christian County Now that his interest in STEM began with building with Lego when he was younger. He was drawn into robotics at a Gateway summer camp years ago. He discovered that programming robots was his forte and has been on the robotics team for three years.
Mr. Smith insists he takes a backseat to his students’ success, acting as a guiding hand or silent observer while they problem solve. However, when a student yells “Hey Smith!” from across the classroom, he is quick to walk them through an issue and find a solution.
Competitions
All the planning a preparation doesn’t fully pay off until a competition comes around. Competitions consist of strategy driven tasks framed as games or challenges that the robots compete in.
“It’s very competitive, but at the end of the day they are all working together,” said Smith.
Jesse explained that this year, they have to get the robots to score goals with tri-balls and get robots to hang from poles. After the group shared multiple competition videos with Christian County Now, it became clear that these intense, packed competitions are justly comparable to WWE tournaments.
Every student has a part to play in a competition whether they are a programmer like Jesse, a designer like Bradley Schmitt, or a notebooker like Kaitlynn Cain. These three are among the many students that have continued to make a name for themselves in the region, and across the world. Kaitlynn shared a carefully composed map showing the teams they have competed against and formed an alliance with ranging from Canada to China.
Current accomplishments and future goals
They have spent the past few months traveling across the country competing against national and international teams. In a previous competition, three Gateway teams placed in the top 20 out of 200 national teams. They will be heading to Dallas in April for the world competition where 850 teams will go head-to-head. Jesse is hoping they will have the opportunity to win their division and go to finals.
For most of the students attending Gateway, the road doesn’t end with graduation. Jesse said he feels most accomplished when he gets a program working and meets other students at competitions that have the same interests as him. He plans to continue his passion for years to come with the goal of attending the University of Kentucky.
“I plan on hopefully continuing that there, but also I plan on coming back to Gateway to both mentor the younger generation, and help out the events that we host,” said Jesse.
Mr. Smith is hoping the school is able to keep up with the continued growth and interest in robotics and expressed his pride in the teams he’s help build.
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