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GEAR Information for Schools

Schools

2012 Participating Schools at Texas Tech


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The GEAR competition leaves a large degree of flexibility to schools in how and to what extent they want to participate in the competition.  In the past, participation has varied from a single team with 3 participants from a school to up to 10 teams with over 50 participants.  All participating school teams need to have a teacher who sponsors the school team(s).

Schools decide how they want to participate in the GEAR competition.  In the past, some schools offered LEGO robotics as an after school activity while others incorporated the activity into their math, science, technology, or GT classes.  Teams meet between once a week after school to 5 days a week in class.  Students must have access to a computer lab at the schools in order to program their robots.

  • Participating in the GEAR competition is free of charge, but registration is required.
  • Each participating school will receive a set of game pieces, a game mat, and the competition rules during the kick-off event.
  • A limited number of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT kits are available for schools to check out for the duration of the competition.
  • The spring 2012 competition will be partly organized by engineering freshmen students enrolled in ENGR 1315: Introduction to Engineering. They will be available to mentor school teams and assist coaches in the Lubbock area.
    • They will have prior experience to the design and programming process with LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT kits.
    • Engineering students will be teamed up with schools depending on their schedule.
    • The GEAR competition serves as a service learning project in the class and they will receive course credit for participation.
    • Research has shown that an early exposure to meaningful engineering design projects improves the level of understanding
    • Service learning also improves retention rates among engineering freshmen.
  • We will offer webinars/online mentoring for participating schools further away from Lubbock.

Event Dates 2012:

Engineering Mentor
  • January 21 - 9 a.m. - Noon: New Teacher Workshop, Whitacre College of Engineering, Texas Tech University, Electrical Engineering Building, Room 217 (Seacat Room)
  • February: Start of Team Mentoring Program through Texas Tech Engineering Students
  • February 25 - 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.: Kickoff Event at Texas Tech, Biology Lecture Hall 110.
    (The competition challenge will be presented; rules, game pieces, and game mats will be distributed; and teams will be working on hands-on engineering challenges.)
  • March 24 - 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.: Practice Run at the Texas Tech Recreational Center: Teams come and practice on official game boards. Elementary schools compete in the morning (9 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.) middle schools in the afternoon (Noon - 2:45 p.m.).
  • April 21 - 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.: Competition Day at the Texas Tech Recreational Center: Compete to win a GEAR award.

Gear 2012 Signup

Deadline: Jan 9, 2012 Extended to February 1, 2012

  • Fill out the Registration Form
  • Send the form to Dr. Karp
    (Choose one of the following options:)
    • Email:
      tanja.karp@ttu.edu
    • Mail:
      Dr. Tanja Karp
      Box 43102
      Lubbock, TX 79409-3102
    • Fax:
      806.742.1245 - ATTN: Dr. Tanja Karp