Robotics Club for Students with and without Disabilities

By October 7, 2016 Press Releases

Special Olympics Unified Robotics Kickoff Soon

SEATTLE, WA – Last year students from King’s High School in Shoreline created a new program called Unified Robotics™. Unified Robotics is a robotics club designed to make hands-on STEM learning available to high school students of all abilities. This year the Unified Robotics season starts with a kickoff event on Monday, October 10 at 5pm. It will be hosted at Microsoft, food and drink provided, and will be held at the Microsoft Redmond Town Center 5, 16661 NE 72 Way, Redmond WA.

Anyone interested in Unified Robotics is welcome to come. The event will also be live-streamed by Microsoft; the link is available to access at the Unified Robotics website unifiedrobotics.org. STEM study is widely and deeply embedded in mainstream education, however, students with intellectual disabilities have been left behind. This creates significant problems because STEM skills are necessary for success and even survival in modern society. Many people with intellectual disabilities are extremely creative and capable, and simply need exposure and training to reach full potential. That is why it was such a huge leap forward when the Unified Robotics Club was created.

Last year Unified Robotics was piloted at Roosevelt High School by members of the King’s CyberKnights FIRST Robotics Competition team.  Unified Robotics follows the Special Olympics Unified Sports model by pairing students with and without intellectual disabilities with the goals of bringing STEM education to students of all abilities and creating communities of acceptance for all. The students work together to build and program a LEGO robot to play in a sumo wrestling type game competing against teams from other schools.  In its first year, interest exploded and the program was featured on multiple national level broadcast and print outlets.  Special Olympics Washington has incorporated Unified Robotics as a Unified Sport into the Unified Schools programming, formally known as Project UNIFY.

Press Contact

Noelle Foster
206-235-8510
noellefoster@me.com

Leave a Reply