BUIES CREEK, North Carolina – A robotics team comprised of 13 students from Overhills High School and Harnett Central High School will compete at the N.C. FIRST State Championship that will be held this weekend, April 9-10, in Charlotte.
Campbell University’s new School of Engineering and the Argosy Foundation co-sponsor the team: the Harnett County Rookie Team #6003.
The team qualified for this weekend’s state championship after finishing strong at the district robotics competition held at Campbell’s John W. Pope, Jr. Convocation Center April 2-3.
Campbell and Johnston Community College co-hosted the district event, which featured 32 high school teams.
The Harnett County Rookie Team #6003 won both the Industrial Safety Award and the prestigious Rookie All-Star Award, the highest award given to a rookie or first-year team for a strong overall program that meets the ideals and goals of the FIRST organization. FIRST is a nonprofit that works to foster and inspire young people’s interests and participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Among all 32 district high school teams, Harnett County Rookie #6003 finished in 19th place. This qualified them for the state-wide robotics competition, as well as the state-wide Rookie All-Star Competition, with the opportunity to move to the world-level FIRST Championship that will be held in St. Louis April 27-30.
“The NC FIRST Program is an outstanding way for high school students to learn a wide variety of engineering and technical skills, along with important lessons on teamwork, gracious professionalism, and outreach,” said Campbell Engineering Founding Dean Dr. Jenna P. Carpenter, who participated in the district event.“We couldn’t be more proud of our Harnett County students, our own Assistant Professor of Engineering Dr. Lynn Albers who is serving as lead mentor for the team, and our great parents and other mentors who have devoted countless hours over the last six months to reach these impressive goals.”
Dr. Albers said: “I am so proud of all the students (aka ‘future engineers’), mentors and parents. We have been working hard since build season began on January 9th and the team has done incredibly well in its first two competitions. We are blessed with very talented, hard-working and conscientious students and would love to see them qualify for the World Championships in St. Louis.”
The team’s participation in NC FIRST has been made possible through generous donations from Campbell Engineering, the Argosy Foundation, the mentors and the students’ families.
Donations to support the team can be made by going to SUM Robotics at Campbell University on Edco: https://campbell-university.ed.co/sum-robotics
Campbell Engineering will welcome its inaugural freshman class in August 2016. Offering a Bachelor of Science in General Engineering with concentrations in mechanical engineering and chemical engineering, Campbell’s program will feature an innovation project-based, hands-on freshman curriculum and a state-of-the-art Makerspace, fabrication laboratory, and innovative classroom and collaboration space.