Media Alert
For immediate release

Contact: Theresa Komitas
Phone: (630) 608-5031
E-mail: tkomitas@sd308.org

Oswego, Ill. (April 26, 2023) - Congratulations to the SD 308 robotics team, 2338 Gear It Forward, who competed at the 2023 FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship in Houston, Texas. They finished in the top 64 robots in the world.  There are over 3,200 robotic teams worldwide and over 600 qualified and competed at the World Championship. 

In addition to qualifying for Worlds through Regional competitions that they competed in, they also earned an invitation when their team won the Engineering Inspiration Award at the 7 Rivers Regional Event in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. 

The Engineering Inspiration Award is an award that celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community. This was awarded in part to them due to their ability of spreading the message of FIRST throughout the community as well as their involvement in passing legislation to have robotics supported and recognized on the 3rd Friday in March in Illinois as Illinois FIRST Robotics Day.

FIRST works as a community to prepare young people for a STEM future and aims to ensure its programs have a lasting, positive impact as well as inspire the next generation of innovators and leaders. Each year the competition has a theme and a game. The 2022-2023 competition’s theme is ENERGIZE. The game, CHARGED UP was launched in January of 2023 and encourages competitors to address challenges related to access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. While learning real-world engineering skills, the student competitors will build and program robots.

Congratulations to all of these emerging engineers!