Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers USA (IEEE) honored Lawrence Tech Professor CJ Chung with its citation of honor award for his leadership in founding the Robofest competition to inspire interest in engineering among pre-college students.

Chung founded Robofest in 2000 with the goal of getting more students interested in the STEM subjects before they get to college. Since then more than 8,800 students have competed in Robofest, including teams from 13 states and seven countries. The world championship finals are held at Lawrence Tech every year in May.

For information about Robofest, go to www.robofest.net .

IEEE noted that Chung has added a variety of unique Robofest categories designed to attract a diverse range of students to Robofest. Exhibition competition has provided an opportunity to show off students’ creative robotics R&D projects. The RoboParade and the RoboFashion & Dance Show have attracted more diverse students into STEM. Vision Centric Challenges have been offered for advanced high school students.

“I thank all Robofest staff, coaches, volunteers, and sponsors. I am proud of all the Robofest students,” Chung said.

He pointed to three participants who exemplify the potential that Robofest can tap into:

• Joshua Siegel competed in Robofest from 2001 to 2007,  when his exhibition project was a robot with a GPS navigation sensor. He is a student at MIT and co-founder and president of Technology of Course Zero Automation in Boston (coursezero.com). He has designed and is producing an advanced inertial GPS that gives more accurate positioning than conventional GPS.
• Janice Duncan competed in Robofest as a student at Cass Tech High in Detroit. She won the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship in 2009 and is studying electrical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
• Jamie MacLennan participated in Robofest 2007 through 2009 and won a Robofest scholarship. Her team took first place in a robot math challenge during the 2009 world championship. She is currently a sophomore at Lawrence Tech majoring in mechanical engineering, and works at TARDEC Joint Center for Robotics as an intern.

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