CHS Robotics Recruits on Wednesday

The b invites interested parents and their middle and elementary school children to a meeting on Wednesday, June 1, at 7 pm in the cafeteria. , led by physics teacher Allan Tumolillo, is winner of the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award for New Jersey for robotics design; alliance captain of the New Jersey State Championship Alliance; and member of the second place alliance in the World Championships in St. Louis. The meeting will include presentations by the club members, a chance to try out the award-winning robot “Scorpion,” and information for parents interested in starting robotics clubs at the middle and elementary schools. This gathering is also a reassuring look into the future for this former teacher.

 Gather a few teachers and ask about the book and movie “Rocket Boys” (first known as “October Sky”), and you may see them turn away, cough, perhaps even tear up a bit. Or that’s what happens if you ask me about Homer Hickam’s memoir of growing in coal country. Seeing Sputnik charge across the West Virginia sky, Hickam decided to become a rocket engineer and he began his unlikely journey by building rockets in the basement. Three years of amateur rocketry – some teacher-led, most learn-as-you-go aerodynamics– led Hickam and his friends to the National Science Fair, where they won a gold medal.  Encouraged by a teacher, Hickam and all of his rocket buddies went to college, surprising even themselves with their success.

What the rocket boys did is glimpse the future in Sputnik and chase it, out ahead of the adults in their lives. I don’t understand robotics and I can’t predict the future, but the robotics kids’ zest and creative zeal reassures me that the problems of the next generation will have solutions – and these students might well craft the answers to coming decades’ questions.

Hickam worked for NASA, though he never made it into space. But an astronaut friend carried something into orbit for Hickam, his National Science Fair gold medal.   If there was ever doubt that kids can reach the stars, it’s there – or in the CHS cafeteria on Wednesday. I'll see you there.