The Superstition Mountain Branch Boys & Girls Club team from Apache Junction recently earned the Championship Award in the high school division at an aerial drone competition.
“The team excelled across multiple categories,” Anna Prakash-Ashton, co-founder of Education Empowers Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Chandler that hosted the event, said in a release.
The team’s coach — Angela Davis, the branch director for the Superstition Mountain Branch Boys & Girls Club, 2805 S. Ironwood Drive in Apache Junction, said she was surprised when the team of Avery Romero and Bryan Rivas Garay won in the high school division.
“I was surprised but know we had very strong members on both our teams. The teams met every day for the last three weeks, just working on fine tuning everything from the coding, to team work, communication and practice the piloting which just requires continuous practice,” she said.
“With the help of Education Empowers Inc. we have been able to bring robotics and technology to all of our members. We will be working this summer on Coding Robots so that when the next season of First Lego League starts, our members will have some experience with the coding to make it easier for them,” Davis said. “We will continue working not only on coding the Lego robots but also getting some new members familiar with the drones and even the Edison Robots. The more opportunities and hands-on experiences we can give our members the better.”
The aerial drone competition was held May 3 at St. Peter’s Indian Mission Catholic School in Bapchule.
Fourteen youth teams from across Arizona competed in the event hosted by Education Empowers Inc. in partnership with local schools, tribal communities and Boys & Girls Clubs. The competition included three skills challenges — drone piloting challenge, autonomous drone coding challenge and the communications challenge.
Founded in 2017, Education Empowers Inc. delivers year-round hands-on STEAM programs in robotics, drones, AI, coding and sustainability for K–12 youth. The nonprofit focuses on empowering underserved communities through education and career exploration.
Go to http://www.educationempowers.org or email contact@educationempowers.org.
