Bob Jones Academy named state co-champion in international robotics competition

GREENVILLE, SC – Bob Jones Academy (BJA) fielded 10 teams in the Wonder League Robotics Competition, an international coding competition with nearly 5,400 teams participating from 53 countries, and were named 2016 South Carolina State Co-Champions, along with three other South Carolina schools in the age six through eight division and one other South Carolina school in the age nine through twelve division.

“I am extremely proud of our students,” said Dr. Jenny Klipp, BJA TechClub director and robotics team coach. “This competition offered them quite the challenge and stretched them both technologically and personally. Their enthusiasm and persistence, combined with their incredible understanding of the fundamentals of programming, was phenomenal. Not only did they advance their coding skills, they learned the importance of finding and capitalizing on each other’s strengths and working together for good of the team.”

Wonder Workshop, based in San Mateo, California, sponsored the competition for elementary students. Participating students were given five missions to complete—each one requiring students to write extensive code and then electronically submit the team’s coding algorithms, along with a video of their robot completing the mission based on the code. Students worked in groups of five and were divided into two age divisions—ages six through eight and ages nine through twelve.

All 10 BJA teams earned perfect scores and will advance to the Perfect Score Round of the competition which concludes Feb. 24.