Indiana is an undisputed hotbed of agriculture, basketball and tenderloins. On the business front, it’s perhaps best known for manufacturing, and in terms of the cutting edge is becoming known for its growing number of life biosciences and software-as-a-service companies.
But robotics? When one thinks of that field, surely the likes of Boston, California or New York come to mind.
Indiana, however, is laying the groundwork not only for robotics to flourish here but for a seemingly unlikely brain gain. The Hoosier state is getting young people interested in robots and robot building and operations in unprecedented numbers.
Indiana leads the nation in the number of K-12 students – 21,000-plus annually – participating in robotics competitions. The Hoosier state has robotics teams from schools in every county and across every grade level. Just over a third of Indiana’s robotics students are girls, 45% are from resource-limited communities and 35% are students of color.
This time of year, those students are gearing up to compete in a myriad of local and regional robotics competitions with an eye toward the Indiana State Robotics Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium on March 25. The competition will be the largest state championship in the country, featuring 300 robotics teams from elementary, middle and high schools across the state.
Event organizers call the State Robotics Championship one of the state’s “best forms for future problem solvers.” And what state doesn’t need more problem solvers?
“This is not about building robots, and it is not about competing — it’s about transforming students’ way of thinking, teaching them to be better problem-solvers and troubleshooters,” says TechPoint Foundation for Youth CEO George Giltner, a long-time robotics coach who gets a lot of credit for growing this movement.
The ultimate goal for K-12 robotics teams is the VEX World Championships held this year in Dallas from April 25 to May 4. No state is expected to have more teams there than Indiana – which will also have some of the best.
How did Indiana become a youth robotics mecca? It took much help from a lot of players from the governmental, corporate and non-profit sectors.
Early in his second term, then Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard attended a VEX robotics championship event. He was blown away by what the young people involved could build, and with the capabilities of the robots that were built. Ballard thought robotics was an ideal way to get students interested in science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM.
Ballard worked with the TechPoint Foundation for Youth to launch a city-wide robotics initiative. The first city-wide robotics championship was held in 2012. Ballard used his philanthropic network to help raise funds with the goal of allowing all Indianapolis high schools the opportunity to compete in a world-class robotics event. Grants covered each school’s cost for the equipment required to form a robotics team, and initially, the program served the city’s 38 high schools.
Robotics, Ballard says, turned out to be the best way – better than coding clubs, drones and even e-sports – to get young people involved in STEM.
By 2016, more than 180 grants had been awarded to public schools for robotics teams, getting nearly 3,000 students into robotics, on an annual budget of $170,000, which was covered primarily by corporate donors concerned about STEM talent in Indiana that industry insiders said was already behind corporate demand.
Though Ballard was leaving office in 2016, his involvement in the robotics competition continued. In fact, it grew with a plan to take the robotics initiative statewide.
The Indiana Department of Workforce Development, Project Lead the Way, VEX Robotics and Robotics Education and Competition Foundation joined the effort, and in 2016 the Indiana State Robotics Initiative began.
Major corporate donors, including Eli Lilly and Co., Guggenheim Life & Annuity and Roche Diagnostics, stepped up to expand the grant program to K-12 schools across the state that were interested in starting a robotics team. The grants include the cost of all the material needed to build the robot. The response from schools big and small, rural and urban, was overwhelming.
A big part of the growth is credited to the co-operation and collaboration among robotics coaches statewide. Unlike traditional sports coaches, who seldom share playbooks or strategies, robotics coaches often network and share best practices. The cooperation isn’t surprising. After all, at competitions two teams are often paired and required to work together. That dynamic often puts teams from rural and urban settings together – or in the case of national and world competitions teams from far-flung areas teaming up, some that don’t even speak the same language.
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indiana’s statewide robotics growth has continued unabated. As of today, more than $1.4 million in grants have been awarded to Indiana robotics teams at all grade levels. The number of Indiana VEX robotics teams has increased from 196 to 1,788 in just the last four years. This year’s state championship will feature 304 teams and attract more than 13,000 spectators from across the state.
In April, Indiana will send 152 teams – more than any other state – to the VEX World Championship. At the worlds, Indiana will account for 10% of the total number of teams sent there from 40 countries.
You don’t have to look far to find a proponent for the robotics youth movement in Indiana. The biggest advocates are perhaps the students themselves.
“Involvement in robotics is about developing leadership skills, developing communication (skills) and preparing you for conflict resolution,” says Claire Bishop, a high school robotics team member from Greenfield. “In the future, robotics might not lead me to an engineering career, but it will it lead me to be a successful leader and influencer in the future.”
