Mentor Manufacturers Support Student Engineers at RoboBots Competition

Sparks flew all day Saturday at Lakeland Community College for the third annual RoboBots Competition.

The event was produced by the Alliance for Working Together, consortium of area manufacturers working with Lakeland to promote their industry as a viable career option for soon-to-be graduates. Nineteen teams from schools like Lake Catholic, Harvey and Riverside participated in the competition won by Beaumont of Cleveland Heights after six rounds of titanium- and polycarbonate-crushing action.

Watch the above video in which Alyson Scott of Fredon Corp. and Jenn Kiminas of Libra Industries talk about the business community's involvement in the event.

Each team was sponsored by a Northeast Ohio manufacturer, including the following ones from Mentor:

• Component Repair Technologies
• Libra Industries
• Avery Dennison
• Trust Technologies
• Fredon Corp.
• Matrix Tool & Machine
• Roll Kraft
• Burton Industries

The girls from Beaumont won trophies and a heavy metal chassis kit from Lexington, Ky.-based GEARS, valued at $900, to help them construct next year's robot.

The team will compete in the National Robotics League competition May 17 to 19 in Indianapolis.