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A SCORE of Robots - Middle school students engage in hands-on learning during COSAM's VEX IQ Challenge Camp
During the 2018 VEX IQ Challenge Camp, Auburn University’s Southeastern Center of Robotics Educations (SCORE), and COSAM outreach programs strived to inspire and prepare future generations for further education in STEM with a robotic challenge.
The VEX IQ Challenge Camp is a week-long robotics camp for sixth to eighth grade students who are instructed by SCORE staff in basic robotics, advanced mechanisms, and engineering principles to build their own robots. After participating in hands-on robot building and programming activities, the camp ends with a friendly competition where students go head-to-head in programming challenges, driving and skill-based challenges, and teamwork challenges.
“It’s really cool to see kids get excited about the same things that I’m excited about,” said SCORE robotics education specialist TJ Nguyen. “Since the beginning of camp, many of the students have said when they go back to school they want to start a robotics club or team.”
Students participating in the VEX IQ Challenge Camp spend the majority of their time in the COSAM classrooms, laboratories, and outdoor training facilities. Camp participants also experience campus life while residing in university housing, eating at on-campus dining facilities, and enjoying evening supervised social and recreational activities.
COSAM outreach director Mary Lou Ewald said the VEX IQ Challenge Camp allows participants to discover more than just robotics and campus-life. “The VEX IQ Challenge Camp is helping kids determine both what they might want to be and what they might not want to be when they grow up, because not every student takes to robotics,” said Ewald. “I think one thing about the camp is that it teaches all students basic critical-thinking skills at an early age, which will help them in any career they choose.”
SCORE also sponsored seven local elementary robotics competition teams to participate in the VEX IQ Competition, where teams are tasked with designing and building robots to play against other teams in a game-based challenge. Three of the teams moved on to the state championship in Jacksonville, where Ewald discovered what the students’ teachers thought of the robotics programs.
“I have taught for 17 years, and this is the best thing I have ever done with my kids,” a teacher told Ewald. “They figure it out all on their own. I have watched those kids start from not knowing anything, opening the computer, and not even knowing how to start the program to now solving all of their own problems. They rarely ask me anything and they do it all.” From there, Ewald made it her mission for SCORE to sponsor more than seven robotics teams, an idea that grew into Mission 100.
In the 2018-19 school year, SCORE and the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, or REC Foundation, are aiming to start 100 new VEX-IQ elementary robotics competition teams in Alabama with a focus on rural, urban, and under-resourced schools with their new program Mission 100. Mission 100 will provide over $1,400 worth of equipment, supplies, and training per school including two VEX-IQ competition robotics kits, engineering notebook pack, challenge game pieces, two-day teacher workshops in each region, and ongoing support during the school year from SCORE and the REC Foundation.
“I think we rely too much on elementary school teachers to be the sage on the stage and fill these minds with all this information,” said Ewald. “Robotics help students take control of their own learning, and I think that’s really powerful.”
A gift of $500 to sponsor a school will provide the materials and resources to start one sustainable robotics program at a school, and will be matched by a $500 gift from the REC Foundation.
To learn more about how you can make a donation, contact Ashley Underwood in the Office of Development at (334) 844-2931.
Last Updated: 10/12/2018