Robots help humans make connections in Gulfport by Kristen Dechert According to a recent Mississippi Economic Policy Center report “The State of Working Mississippi 2012,” 46 percent of Mississippi’s labor force lacks formal schooling beyond high school, creating a skills gap that prevents employers from filling well-paying jobs. In Gulfport, students are counteracting this by gaining STEM skills and making industry connections through the robotics team.A member of the international FIRST Robotics Competition, Team Fusion is a group of about 40 students collaborating to build a functioning robot. During the six-week build session, students stay after school 3 days a week and meet on Saturdays to work on the project. At each team meeting, area engineers and college engineering students mentor the high schoolers through the design, production and assembly processes. For CTE teacher and faculty advisor Andrew Gunkel, this collaboration is the most important aspect of Team Fusion. “It’s more than just building a robot. … It is building relationships with the mentors so that [the students] understand how [the engineers] solve problems, how they design robots and how they work together,” said Gunkel. “That is the true purpose of the team.” Although he enjoys building the robot and going to competitions, Senior Daniel Through our partnerships with our Jantsch recognizes that those are just added business and industries … we allow our benefits to Team Fusion participation. “The students to gain the knowledge, skills whole purpose of the robot is to get a bunch of people together to solve a problem, and abilities to be successful in but that’s not really what Dean Kamen … entry-level work and also to see what the inventor of FRC had in mind when he it takes to move up the ladder in these developed this competition,” said Jantsch. professions.” “He wanted the students to work with mentors and engineers to see what the actual industry is like.”
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CTE director David Fava agrees that networking with area professionals is a boon for these and other CTE students. “Through our partnerships with our