Portage Township Education Foundation helps pave the way for opportunities

Portage Township Education Foundation helps pave the way for opportunities

The Portage Township Education Foundation granted the Portage robotics team, Porta-Botz, with a $1,500 grant. Thanks to this grant, the robotics team was able to host a robotics competition of their own using the money to build an additional arena that was on the same level as a Robotics World Championship arena.

The Region Robotics Rumble VRC Blended, which was hosted at Portage high school, turned out to be a success with 17 schools registering and over 50 teams. There were awards given out at the high school and middle school level, but the biggest was the tournament champion which allowed the winners to qualify for state/regional championship.

While talking about the grant John Kappes, head coach of the team, said, “It was the boost we needed at the time. We were so excited.”

The tournament winners were the Porta-Botz and Iron Pride from Wawasee high school in Syracuse, Ind.

The Porta-Botz have gone on to win several awards over the years. Some of these awards included Indiana’s Design Award and VEX World Qualifiers.
Jakob Kurr, a member from the first robotics team of Portage felt that the program had given students real-world experience. “It’s a sense of growing by failure. There was nothing that made us want to go home. If you had something going on at home, you could stay here.”

The program, which started out with only 10 members in 2015, has since grown and reached max capacity at 60 members. The program has also made its way into middle schools and some elementary schools in Portage.
“It’s the future,” Kappes said. “Six years ago, programs like this didn’t exist in schools.”

The Portage Township Education Foundation is a non-profit organization that remains dedicated to supporting teachers and students in their efforts to innovate and achieve.