Grand Forks school system receives $38,500 to support tech education

Pamela Knudson, Grand Forks Herald
·1 min read

Dec. 29—GRAND FORKS — Grand Forks Public Schools has received $38,500 in Grants for Innovation awards from the North Dakota Department of Career and Technical Education.

The grants will be used to provide new innovative science, technology, engineering, or innovation programs for students, with preference given to projects that involve robotics competitions.

Each elementary school will receive up to $2,000 for VEX Robotics clubs. Middle schools will each receive between $2,000 and $3,500 for VEX IQ teams, and Grand Forks Central and Red River high schools will receive $3,500 for VEX EDR teams.

"The continued growth and success of the competitive VEX Robotics clubs across the school system have been outstanding, and a testament to the advisers within the participating schools for their efforts," said Eric Ripley, who wrote the grant applications. Ripley is executive director of career and technical education and technology for the Grand Forks school district.

"These grants are extremely valuable in helping to support the clubs as they prepare and compete in the current season," he said.

VEX Robotics is an innovative robotics design that transforms STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning for students and their teachers. Students create and program robots to operate both by remote control and autonomously.

In VEX competitions, student teams are tasked with designing and building a robot to compete against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge. The VEX Robotics projects encourage teamwork, leadership and problem-solving among groups, Ripley said. VEX Robotics competitions are the largest and fastest-growing robotics competitions in the world.