Ridgefield gets grant to start robotics team

Ridgefield — Ridgefield High School science teacher Jeff Brink earned a $15,000 Daimler Education in Motion award grant to form a FIRST Robotics Competition team at the school. Brink got the idea after hearing Ashlee Hatcher, a student who transferred to Ridgefield from Minnesota, speak about being part of a robotics team. Brink thinks starting a robotics team could help connect the physical science, physics and pre-engineering classes together and get students involved in a team sport. Brink, along with fellow teachers Steve Rinard and Austin Biel, will coach the team, which includes getting science, technology, engineer and math professionals, such as engineers, programmers and machinists, and students to team up and build competitive robots. So far, Brink said, a Boeing engineer is on board to help.