High school students gear up for Rock River Robotics Off-season Competition

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - As schools and their teams enjoy the Summer offseason, the same applies to local robotics teams. But on Saturday, July 23 they’ll have the chance to improve their skills at the Rock River Robotics Off-season Competition.

“One of the mantras of FIRST is calling this a varsity sport for the mind,” Rock River Robotics Offseason Competition Co-Chair Karen Hill said.

While the weekend competition will be a fun, learning exercise for competitors, teams will also be building serious career skills.

“Rockford has a solid history of manufacturing, we’re really excited about having that in our community and there are definite workforce needs and so when Karen (Hill) talked about ‘this is sports for the mind’ this is where every player can go pro,” Rockford Robotics Mentor Chris Magee said.

”Unlike the NFL or the NBA that’s hard to get into, our students who come to us in high school to learn manufacturing and engineering, we have jobs for all of them right here in our community,” Magee said.

While students build up career skills, they also build life skills as well.

“It’s helped me a lot to figure out what I want to do with my life and kind of show that I have a lot of capabilities that I didn’t think I had,” Winnovation Student Manager Hannah Jacobson said.

“We just try to come up with as many different ideas as possible, we try to be original with our ideas and complete challenges the best way that we can,” Stillman Valley’s Connor Osullivan said.

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