Your Home for Robotics in the Mountain State
Not even a monster December snowstorm that blanketed all of West Virginia could keep Mountain State students from flocking to the Center for Educational Technologies for the annual West Virginia FIRST LEGO League robotics tournament, held for the fifth year in a row in 2009 on the Wheeling Jesuit University campus. Dr. Meri Cummings, science resource teacher and lab manager at the center, has served as tournament director since the competition came to WJU. This year, Sharon Morgan of the Challenger Learning Center served as assistant director.
The annual tournament is simply the crowning jewel of the robotics effort. Cummings is a veritable Johnny Appleseed, traveling throughout the state during the year thanks to funding from the West Virginia NASA Space Grant Consortium, holding workshops on LEGO robotics for teachers and youth group leaders and spreading the word on robotics. She also hosts a very successful weeklong summer day camp each June that focuses on robotics and fitness, with 2009 marking the camp's third year.