CRESTVIEW — In the not-so-distant future, when thousands of robotics students, teachers and family members visit Northwest Florida for a competition, their destination could be Crestview.
And Crestview Technology Air Park developers believe a hangar on their Bob Sikes Airport site could be a perfect place for it. As part of its educational component, C-TAP project executive Dennis Mitchell and engineer Dr. Paul Hsu, a C-TAP founding partner, envision an arena that attracts young robotics enthusiasts and, as they grow up, retains them as technology professionals.
Mitchell and Hsu saw how big a robotics tournament could be when hundreds of students from as far away as Tallahassee and Panama City visited Davidson Middle School Jan. 30.
“This could be huge for our tourism,” Mitchell said. “There are thousands of people who come to these events. It is absolutely inspiring to watch these programs.”
THE THREE D’S
Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce Airport Committee members learned of the vision March 24, when Davidson Middle School robotics teacher Tim Sexton and his son, Jeremiah, a Crestview High freshman, gave a robotics demonstration.
Sexton said, in his class, there are “three D’s: design, drones and 3-D printing.”
In addition to robotics, his students learn how to design, build and fly unmanned aerial vehicles, known as UAVs, or drones. 3-D printing is a key component of the class curriculum, and a skill his students demonstrated at the March 19 Triple B Cook-off.
At a Main Street booth underwritten by CCB Community Bank, Davidson students demonstrated robotics skills and helped supporters fly a drone armed with a pin into a wall of balloons. Supporters who popped a balloon won a pair of plastic UAV pilot wings produced onsite on a 3-D printer.
GROWING THE AIRPORT
“This is middle school. When you were in middle school, were you doing anything like this?” Mitchell asked the gathering of business and community leaders. “If we don't have the full education process like this, we're not going to grow our airport.”
Community leaders see its value as well.
“We want to build an arena in Okaloosa County to hold a robotics competition,” county Commissioner Wayne Harris said, especially after neighboring Walton County turned down a request to build a robotics arena on donated land.
“Their loss can be our gain," Harris said. "This is serious competition and attracts people from across the United States.”
“It is a worldwide competition,” Sexton said.
“There's a lot of kids who are from lower income families who can't get to these competitions,” Harris said. “The biggest obstacle is not the lack of kids who want to compete. It's the funds to get them to the competitions.”
Having a robotics arena in North Okaloosa County will tremendously benefit rural low-income students, who won’t have far to travel to attend events, he said.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Robotics arena could come to Crestview airport (VIDEO)