AAPS: Three questions for Andy Meyer, RE 5th Grade Robotics Competition

By Jo Mathis/AAPS District News Editor

Forsythe Middle School will be the setting Saturday for the Ann Arbor Public Schools’ annual 5th Grade Robotics Competition among students from Abbot, Allen, Bach, Dicken, Haisley, Mitchell, and Pattengill.

AAPS Project Lead The Way (PLTW) teachers organize the three-hour event as a way to extend the learning opportunities for students from their PLTW robotics and automation modules in their fifth grade classrooms, explained Haisley’s PLTW teacher, Andy Meyer.

“We want our fifth grade students to focus on their problem-solving skills and work through some of the problems they’ll be faced with on the robotics field,” said Meyer, noting that includes robot design and strategies for accumulating points during the competition.

“We also want students to focus on teamwork and working together with students from other schools,  so communication is a huge piece of that,” he said. “We want to build lasting friendships and passion for science and technology.”

The competition will be held on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020 from 9 a.m. to noon. In the following video, Meyer answers three questions about the competition:

Lakewood students compete in the 2019 Fifth Grade Robotics Competition last January.