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Oct. 13, 2011
The Naylor Family Trust Fund, through the Community Trust Foundation, recently awarded the Garrett Engineering and Robotics Society (GEARS) with a grant that will make it possible for more Garrett County youth to participate in educational robotics activities.
Many youth development organizations, such as 4-H, Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts, are introducing robotics into their programs. Yet many more of these clubs lack either the financial resources or technical skill to embrace this new technology. In an effort to address this problem, GEARS will utilize its robotics activity, SuGO, to jumpstart local club-based robotics programs.
SuGO was developed by GEARS as a “friendly” robotics competition in which small teams design and build sumo-wrestling robots using the Lego mindstorms system. GEARS has been running monthly SuGO competitions for the past five years, but this new “SuGO outreach project” is, according to a spokesperson, designed to provide resources to enable local clubs to organize and run their own competitions.
Over the next two years, GEARS will seek out Garrett County clubs interested in learning more about robotics. GEARS will provide these clubs with outreach in the form of hands-on training, and robotic hardware (LEGO Mindstorms kits) purchased with funds provided by the Naylor grant.
SuGO “outreach mini-grants” will be available to clubs that meet regularly, operate under a parent organization, and have sufficient youth within the target age-group (8-14 years). Grant applications will be available online at www.SuGObot.com.
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