Opinion: Today at the Obama White House: Robots

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Today the White House held a science fair.

Junior high and high school students from around the nation visited Washington with their science projects. President Obama visited with the students and checked out their displays, including a soccer-playing robot.

The fair was part of the Obama administration’s Educate to Innovate initiative, which seeks to help make American students top achievers in science, technology, engineering and math.

In remarks to the students, the president said, emphasizing the importance of science in our economic future:

I’ve had the Lakers here. I’ve had the Saints here, the Crimson Tide. I thought we ought to do the same thing for the winners of science fair and robotic contests and math competitions. Because often we don’t give these victories the attention that they deserve. And when you win first place at a science fair, nobody is rushing the field or dumping Gatorade over your head.

But in many ways, our future depends on what happens in those contests -- what happens when a young person is engaged in conducting an experiment, or writing a piece of software, or solving a hard math problem, or designing a new gadget.

-- Lori Kozlowski
twitter.com/lorikozlowski

Video: President Obama talks to students at the White House Science Fair. Credit: The White House Blog.