Cornell Duffield Engineering faculty and students traveled to Washington, D.C., for the inaugural U.S. Governors Cup Robotics Tournament, where they showcased the XRP robot, hoping to inspire the next generation of STEM students and to encourage many of the nation's governors to integrate robotics into their state curriculums.
The competition, held Feb. 20-21 at DAR Constitution Hall, attracted high school robotics teams from all 50 states and drew hundreds of attendees. It also attracted several governors, who were in town for the National Governors Association Winter Meeting.
The event aimed to illustrate design thinking, technology and teamwork as benchmarks for student achievement and workforce preparedness, and to emphasize a bipartisan, state-led model for scaling hands-on science, technology, engineering and math education nationwide.
The event organizer, Experiential Robotics, is a consortium of partners, including Cornell Duffield Engineering, that created the XRP platform, used to introduce students to robotics. The XRP is an accessible, inexpensive educational platform, making it particularly attractive to schools wanting to include robotics in their classrooms.
Cornell Duffield Engineering's Cornell Cup Robotics lab serves as one of the main research and development groups for the robot. David Schneider, director of the master of engineering program for systems engineering and professor of practice, serves as the board chair for the XRP Consortium Advisory Council.
"The XRP is already used in 180 countries, as well as six graduate courses here at Cornell," said Schneider. "And the governors of New Hampshire, Minnesota and Ohio have pledged and are already working toward putting at least one in every high school."
Schneider and his team spent much of the event showcasing variations of the XRP robot his lab created, including:
- the International Space Station (ISS) microMimic, which mimics in real time the movement of the ISS and was developed with Boeing;
- the AR Kart Racer, an augmented reality racing experience; and
- the AgXRP, a digital agriculture STEM experience targeting rural communities. It was developed with 4-H, the University of Idaho and Cornell Cooperative Extension, and led by Cornell Systems Engineering lecturer Jonathan Jaramillo.
"Cornell's work has established a strong foundation for advancing K-12 STEM education at a national level," Jaramillo said. "The AgXRP, in particular, is opening new doors for students interested in exploring how automation and robotics are transforming food production. This is especially significant for students in rural and less densely populated states, which are often underserved when it comes to STEM and robotics education.
"By grounding these concepts in agriculture," Jaramillo said, "the AgXRP gives students in these communities a direct connection between STEM and the industries shaping their everyday lives."
Schneider said showing the nation's governors how STEM, and early access to robotics, can transform everyday lives was a priority.
"The event offered a remarkable opportunity to showcase Cornell striving to make a real impact in our nation's workforce development needs," he said, "and in turn help K-12 students and teachers across the nation recognize that Cornell really does strive to 'do the greatest good.'
"The XRP was highlighted throughout the event as a scalable, accessible and important step toward meeting our nation's growing STEM workforce development needs," he said.
Schneider hopes this event - and the participation of leading institutions such as Cornell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University - will help robotics competitions and STEM activities, like FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), be classified as an official K-12 sport, allowing schools to prioritize them as they do other sports. FIRST, a leading partner in this year's Governors Cup, is the world's most prominent K-12 STEM competition, with more than 1 million active participants.
Representatives from Qualcomm, Beta Technologies, Disney, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Smithsonian Institution, Intel, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, NAVSEA and the U.S. Coast Guard were among the attendees.
"The best part of the event was the opportunity to be able to speak to leaders in academia, government and industry and promote the work Cornell Cup Robotics is doing in making STEM education accessible to K-12 students across the nation," said Andrew Lin '27, a Duffield Engineering student.
High school participants were not the only winners at the tournament's closing ceremonies: Schneider was awarded the Excellence in Education Leadership and Innovation award from the National Governors Association.
Damien Sharp is a strategic communications and media relations specialist in Cornell's Washington, D.C., office.
