With a few taps on their cell phones, 80 aspiring engineers toyed with complex robots during a regional introduction to robotics programming as part of the Pennsylvania FIRST Tech Challenge.

But the two-part, hands-on and minds-on workshop wasn’t just fun and games for the middle- and high-school students; it’s one step closer to this year’s nationwide competition: FIRST RES-Q, a mountain-climbing, rescue-driven contest on a 12-foot-square playing field. And its underlying goal is to score points with students by opening doors to the power, excitement and fun of science, technology, engineering and math.

“Every study I’ve seen predicts shortages of engineers in the next couple decades to tackle the important challenges we will face,” Penn State Great Valley Interim Chancellor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering James Nemes said in the university’s coverage of the event. “One of the things we need to do is encourage students at a young age to think about careers in engineering. Events like this can really showcase what engineering is about and how cool that can be.”

As host for the workshop, Penn State Great Valley’s newly constructed engineering suite was itself a showcase for the future of engineering. The Malvern campus is now home to the advanced final half of a four-year engineering program that culminates in a two-semester senior design project and a summer internship in the engineering industry.

Read more about the FIRST Tech Challenge workshop and the local collegiate engineering program on the Penn State Great Valley website here.