COSAM News Articles 2021 October 2021 Southern Educational Robotics Conference hosted by SCORE

2021 Southern Educational Robotics Conference hosted by SCORE

Published: 10/14/2021

On October 7 and 8, the Southeastern Center of Robotics Education (or SCORE), an outreach unit in the College of Sciences and Mathematics at Auburn University, hosted the Southern Educational Robotics Conference (or SERC) for K-12 teachers and administrators. More than 170 attendees, both in-person and remote, gathered to share tools and tips to change the future of education with robotics. SERC included four featured speakers and 32 breakout sessions hosted by educators from across the south. The conference also featured an exhibit hall for companies and organizations specializing in educational robotics products and services, including VEX Robotics, Firia Labs, EZ-Robot, Inc., Tynker and Dauphin Island Sea Lab. At these exhibits, educators could meet face-to-face with representatives from each company/organization to learn more about the cutting-edge programs, curricula and products that are available in today’s growing market of robots tools for the classroom.

The first SERC was hosted in 2019 to meet a need for professional development and support in Alabama as it became one of the fastest-growing states in the VEX Robotics community. In 2020, the conference expanded and became the first multi-platform robotics conference in the nation to further serve educators and administrators in the south and beyond.

This year, SERC provided a hybrid option where attendees could attend either in-person or remotely, with each in-person session being streamed and recorded for remote attendees to view. The 32 sessions offered this year at SERC included topics that apply broadly to any robotics educator as well as topics focused on many specific platforms.

SERC's featured speakers this year included some of those at the forefront of advancing robotics education across the world. The speakers included Laura Boccanfuso, CEO of Van Robotics, Inc., David Ewing, president of Firia Labs, Dennis Kambeitz, CEO of EZ-Robot, and Jason Mckenna, Director of Global Education Strategy of VEX Robotics and Robomatter, Inc. Each speaker provided inspiring and valuable insight into the world of educational robotics and encouraged attendees in their efforts to improve education across the south.

SERC 2022 will take place in October 2022 as SCORE welcomes even more educators and administrators from across the country to participate in this unique conference specializing in educational robotics.