Blanks and Ewald Attend Robotics Education Symposium

George Blanks
George Blanks

George Blanks, director of continuing education for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, and Mary Lou Ewald, director of outreach for the College of Sciences and Mathematics, were selected to participate in the 2006 Robotics Education Symposium at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. this spring. The symposium, funded under the National Science Foundation's Teacher Professional Continuum Program, was hosted by the Technology Student Association.

Blanks and Ewald were part of a team that develops criteria and scales for assessing the use of standards-based robotics competitions in high school Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. The two are co-directors of Alabama BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology), a local robotics competition for middle and high schools in Central Alabama, as well as South's BEST Regional Robotics Championship, one of three championships of BEST Robotics, Inc. Both serve on the Board of Directors of BEST, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas.