Mid-Del students answer Botball Challenge
Students from Del City Elementary School complete a task Thursday during the Mid-Del Junior Botball Challenge at the Rose State College Lead Center. Photo by Jeff Harrison
By Jeff Harrison
Midwest City Beacon
Mid-Del elementary school students participated in the annual Junior Botball Challenge Feb. 26 at the Rose State College Lead Center.
Barnes, Cleveland Bailey, Del City Elementary, Epperly Heights, Midwest City Elementary, Schwartz, Soldier Creek, Tinker, and Townsend were represented in the event.
Students were tasked with completing nine challenges, seven of which were required for a team to earn the Botball Challenge Champion title for their school. These challenges required students to program their robots to complete a variety of tasks, including driving forward to reach specific locations on the mat, backing up, parking in designated garages, and moving cans to assigned areas.
Each task required successful coding, testing, and refinement of the robot’s performance.
Krissy Gibson, K-12 Science/STEM Instructional Facilitator for Mid-Del Schools, said the event offers students much more than a competition experience.
“Botball provides students with valuable opportunities to develop problem-solving and coding skills,” she said. “The challenges are intentionally open-ended, meaning there is no single correct way to program a robot to complete a task. This allows students to think critically, collaborate with teammates, and design solutions based on their own ideas.”
Gibson emphasized the broader benefits of participation as well.
“In addition to learning coding skills—an increasingly important workforce competency—students build perseverance, creativity, and long-term problem-solving abilities that support future academic and career success,” she said.
Students received a completion button for each challenge their team successfully finished. Teams that completed all seven required challenges were awarded a Botball Challenge Champion banner to display at their school, along with a special recognition button.
The schools that completed all seven required challenges and earned Champion recognition were Barnes, Cleveland Bailey, Midwest City Elementary, Schwartz, and Townsend.
Krissy Gibson works with a student on a debugging challenge. Photo by Jeff Harrison
