Brownstown Central High School senior Cody Blackburn, right, receives a Purdue Robotics Scholarship from Purdue University Vice Provost Cherise Hall during the 2025 Indiana Robotics State Championship on March 22 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis.
By Zach Spicer | For The Tribune
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Leading up to the Indiana Robotics State Championship, Cody Blackburn was told he needed to volunteer at the event.
His parents, Ronnie and Adrienne Blackburn, said he and another student would be escorting a woman at the competition.
He had no idea the surprise that was in store.
The woman he’s referring to is Purdue University Vice Provost Cherise Hall.
When she went onstage during the tournament, presented by TechPoint Youth on March 22 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Hall announced Blackburn as one of the winners of the Purdue Robotics Scholarship. The other was Tressa Howey of Fremont High School.
The scholarship covers full-cost resident tuition for four years at Purdue in West Lafayette.
Hall said the scholarship supports Indiana’s top STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent, helping students excel in engineering and technology, according to techpointyouth.org.
She also said there’s more to robotics than just competition. It’s about preparing students for future success in STEM careers, and Purdue is committed to supporting these efforts by investing in the next generation of innovators and problem-solvers.
Blackburn said he participated in robotics for two years at Brownstown Central Middle School and all four years at Brownstown Central High School.
After graduating from BCHS in May, he will turn his attention to studying mechanical engineering at Purdue.
“It just feels great because I don’t have to worry about getting any costs covered for tuition at all,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about applying to new scholarships that cover tuition because it’s already covered and done.”
Winning this scholarship means all of the time he spent with robotics and his other academic endeavors in high school was worth it.
“It really feels like it did just pay off,” he said. “I put in a lot of work, a lot of hours into robotics, and it really feels like it actually went toward something because the only thing I would have gotten otherwise is just qualifying for state at a competition or something.”
Luke Cobb, the robotics coach at BCHS and one of Blackburn’s teachers, nominated him for the scholarship because he was the robotics leader this year.
“He spent the most time working, talking and thinking about the robot. He was the robotics president, as well, this year,” Cobb said. “Cody was the mind behind their robot this year. He would come every day to practice with an idea in mind on how to better their robot and team.”
Cobb submitted the nomination in December and found out Blackburn was chosen in February.
“TechPoint keeps it all quite a secret,” Cobb said. “I only told his robotics team that he had been given an award and he had to be at state this year. We told his parents, as we needed to find a way to get him to state robotics, but other than that, nobody knew exactly what he got.”
Cobb said it was quite a shock when he learned Blackburn won the scholarship.
“Of course, Cody is incredibly smart, but when they are only handing out two scholarships across the entire state, it is quite competitive,” Cobb said. “It was great to see him get it and his reaction.”
Blackburn said he didn’t realize it was a full-tuition scholarship until he asked how much it was worth afterwards.
Purdue’s in-state tuition is nearly $10,000 per year. Blackburn will still have to cover room and board, but he’s hoping other scholarships will help with that.
“If the scholarship can cover anything with college, then yeah, I’ll still apply,” he said.
Blackburn feels he was chosen for the scholarship based on the activities he has participated in and engineering classes he has taken throughout high school.
Along with robotics, he was in the marching band for three years in middle school and all four years in high school, including drum major as a senior.
He also was on the Spell Bowl team all four years at BCHS and Academic Super Bowl math and science teams for two years, and he was captain of all three.
Other activities include German Club for four years (president as a junior), Science Olympiad for three years and musical, Tee Pee Times newspaper and National Honor Society for two years.
Blackburn said he benefited from robotics in a variety of ways.
“It doesn’t just build building skills, like designing skills, but it also develops working as a team because I’m not the only one who worked on the robot throughout the season. It was a team effort,” he said. “It just helps working with other people, and then also, there is just the designing process, where you have to come up with a design, put it into practicality and actually get something done.”
For the 2025 Indiana Robotics State Championship, there were more than 1,900 students from 320-plus teams competing, making it the nation’s largest robotics state championship. That included seven teams from Jackson County.
Blackburn plans to apply what he has learned in robotics to his studies at Purdue and beyond.
“I considered computer science, but I didn’t really know how to code or anything, so I didn’t do that. I considered engineering just because I’d say I’m good at math and science and stuff, and that uses both of those,” Blackburn said. “When looking at the different fields of engineering, that one (mechanical) just seemed best.”
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