State TSA Competition

Yesterday I spent my morning and early afternoon at the State TSA competition at UVSC. I volunteered to run the systems control technology competition. It is basically a lego robotics competition. I came up with a challenge that required the participants to detect white pieces of tape inside of a tube. Upon detection their robot was to make a noise, and keep a running total of how many pieces it found inside the tube. Ryan and I built one to work earlier in the week. Suprisingly, not one of the 4 middle school and 3 high school teams was able to complete the challenge. Two teams didn't even have working transmitters to program their lego bricks. There were some really bright kids there though. It was interesting to watch them work. My observation was that they lacked skill in trouble-shooting and problem solving. Also, design was an issue they struggled with. It makes me wonder how I would have prepared a team to compete in such a competition. What would I do to help my students overcome the same struggles that I saw those students having yesterday? I think that the subject matter I will teach as a teacher isn't so important as learning those skills of critical thinking that I saw lacking in those students. I still don't know what I want to teach, but I want to teach kids to solve problems.