Students in elementary, middle and high-school can really test their STEM skills through action-packed after school robotics competitions. LEGO® Education proudly supports FIRST, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring technology interest in today’s students, to support a global network of robotics competitions.

The FIRST participants are truly LEGO® Smart, and are building the skills needed to be our future leaders. More info.

 “I used to think you had to cover every concept in the textbook,” says Bramlett, a science teacher at Tuscaloosa Magnet Middle School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Her students would dutifully regurgitate the information on tests.

Laboratories, when she could afford them, were low-tech affairs. She taught mitosis by giving her students pipe cleaners to model chromosomes in a dividing cell. Often she just did what she calls “pencil and paper” labs, in which students plodded through problems in a workbook. “For the students it was boring. Science wasn’t one of their favorite subjects,” Bramlett says.

“It really wasn’t fun for me either,” she adds.

What do Seaside Neighborhood School, the 1980s film “Ghostbusters” and bug-grabbing robots have in common? Why, the Emerald Coast B.E.S.T. Robotics Competition, of course.

Now in its fifth year, the Seaside Robotics Team has worked out all the bugs, taking an overall win at the Emerald Coast B.E.S.T. Robotics Competition held Oct. 29 at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. The team edged out 20 adversaries to earn a spot in the South’s B.E.S.T. Competition to be held at Auburn University Dec. 2-3.

The Robotics B.E.S.T. competitions, Boosting Engineering Science and Technology, are a part of a larger Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) movement designed to sustain young students’ interest in these fields.