Kids showcase their creations at 21st annual Sonoma County Robotics Challenge

A record number of Sonoma County schools participated in the 21st annual Sonoma County Robotics Challenge on Saturday, with 462 students in grades 4 through 8 from 28 schools showing up at Elsie Allen High School to demonstrate their robot creations and innovations (one Marin County school took part also).

Organized by the Sonoma County Office of Education, the event encourages students to apply mathematics, science, engineering, critical thinking, teamwork, and oral presentation skills through robotics activities. Teams design and program robots to compete in seven different challenges, including Capture the Flag, Bull in a China Shop and Sumo.

“It put the children’s intelligence outside of themselves into the robot through doing this design and coding,” said Rick Phelan, who has directed the event for 21 years. “Every year it’s like, ‘Wow, these kids are great.’ And they came through again.”

This year’s winner of the coveted overall Golden Propeller Head award: Adele Harrison Middle School in Sonoma.

The competition was judged by engineers from Keysight Technologies and students and faculty from Sonoma State University’s engineering program.