I got treated to a demonstration this morning that, to be brutally blunt, simply blew my mind.
Our Farmersville Rotary Club met today at the Farmersville Independent School District’s Engineering Lab, which is a repurposed grocery store site that Farmersville ISD outfitted to become a state-of-the-art technical learning center for students.
Suffice to say that these young people are doing things and conducting experiments that are eons removed from the days when I was attending shop class and learning how to operate a lathe.
FISD’s Engineering Lab features high-tech robotics and electronics that go so far over my noggin I cannot even begin to explain it. One demonstration, provided by a Farmersville High School student, featured machines that picked up discs and tossed them into mini-basketball hoops; you got more points if the discs landed inside the hoops, rather than just on the tray under the basket.
I could not believe my eyes.
The center — which opened this school year — is run by a young teacher, Marcus Edwards, who the FISD Superintendent Micheal French said was “anointed” to lead this effort for the school system. The students compete in international competitions, known as “The Worlds.” First-year FHS principal David Warren said the competition, held this year in Dallas, actually included students from overseas. The Farmersville students more than held their own while competing against students Europe and Asia.
I want to share this bit of good news with you here as my way of saying that our young folks are doing just fine as they learn the technical –and technological — skills they will need to succeed in life.