This competition in Middletown, Dauphin County had robots coming out to play.
It was part of the 4th Central PA Robotics Competition hosted at the Penn State Harrisburg campus on Saturday. Students from half a dozen local high schools and the civil air patrol 306 cadets were challenged to build an educational robot to do five tasks in sensing, movement, and control.
Organizers say students can come away with a lot by being exposed to science and engineering.
" I think the value of it is to see the students spark," Dauphin County Technical School electronic instructor Dean Jacobs said, "Whenever the students figure something out... they've achieved something. We're trying to teach them to keep going after the task at hand, If they run into a problem, don't quit, keep trying to work to figure it out, so watching them grow is exciting."
Prizes were awarded to the top three teams. The robots were provided by event sponsors at no cost to those taking part.