CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Middle and high school students gathered at Falling Creek Middle School for the second Richmond qualifier for FIRST Tech Challenge, a robotics competition that’s teaching young people far more than just engineering skills.
The competition, organized by the non-profit FIRST Chesapeake, brings students together to design, program and build robots for specific tasks. But participants say the real value lies in the soft skills they develop along the way.
“The students get a lot out of it, so teach you the skills you need for, say, a job interview, being confident about who you are, not only job skills, but like there are actual recruiters that walk around here,” said Amia Robinson, a FIRST Robotics volunteer who has been involved with the program for 15 years…