Greenies Strike Gold in Robotics
Four boys part of UNC Asheville team recognized for community service
There is a human element to robotics and four boys from Christ School have tapped into it.
Bennett David '18, Bronson Gatts '18, Drew Hamilton '18, and William David '21 are part of the Glitch Robotics team that won one of the three big awards at the FIRST North Carolina district competition held Saturday and Sunday at UNC Asheville.
Glitch, a co-ed high school robotics team co-sponsored by UNCA and GE, is only three years old. But even in that infancy, Glitch has twice been recognized with the Engineering Inspiration Award. The award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team's school or organization and community.
Community service has long been front and center in the lives of the David brothers, who are from Asheville.
"Many people are aware that FIRST Robotics is an international robotics competition," Bennett said. "It is less commonly known, however, that FIRST also recognizes students for their community service work, including providing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education and opportunities to other students. William and I founded a STEM education and mentorship program called Future Builders to provide the opportunities that we have had with other students. We began by providing weekly after-school robotics, but have since added additional programs including an after-school homework help and tutoring program, summer robotics camps, and a summer science program specifically for young women. Working with the students at Future Builders has been my favorite activity in high school. We greatly appreciate the flexibility and support we have gotten from Christ School that has allowed us to provide our after-school program."
"Our team serves as the teachers and mentors for all of these programs," William added. "In addition, we also began our team's program to promote recycling of electronic waste. Another initiative we were recognized for is our annual High School Programming Competition which is April 14 this year. Drew Hamilton established this event in partnership with UNC Asheville because there was no competition within four to five hours of us."
Next up for Glitch is a presentation on its community outreach programs at the FIRST state championships which are April 6-8 at Campbell University. If that goes well, the team could advance to the FIRST world championships which are April 18-21 in Houston.
