The MICDS Rampire Robotics Team recently rolled into the community outreach zone for a field trip to Wyland Elementary School. The robotics team has an overall mission to promote STEM among minorities. Thanks to an existing relationship with Wyland through the MICDS World Languages department, they were excited to introduce robotics to the student community at Wyland which encompasses a large demographic of minority groups, many with English as a second language.
The Rampire crew kicked off their visit by reading their origin-story book called “Rampunzel” (a version of the Rapunzel story) in both English and Spanish. Then they split the students into small groups to practice driving mini Sphero robots using blocks as obstacles. At the same time, members of the Rampire “driving team” showcased their competition robot to each group to demonstrate the type of work the team does during the competition season. “A few Wyland students were able to drive it. Our team and the kids had a lot of fun, and we hope we inspired interest in STEM in these students,” said Penny Chen ’23.
Phoebe Burgis ’23 served as the event photographer and added, “The event went extremely well; all the kids seemed very excited to play with the Spheros and create obstacle courses with the blocks for them to drive through. Then, as we drove our team’s FTC robot that we made for this season around the space, many kids were curious and asked questions about how we constructed the robot and what it could do. After the main activity with the Spheros, we talked to all students about FIRST robotics programs and how they could join, and many of them seemed enthusiastic about it.”
Rampire team members reflected on the many highlights from the visit:
“I really liked reading our book to the kids; I thought it was great that we were able to read it in both English and Spanish.” – Alice Ma ’23
“I loved seeing the kids’ faces when they found out they could not only look at the Sphero but drive it themselves.” – Nicole Dai ’23
“I enjoyed watching one of the kids getting really into what Raina [Compton ’23] was doing with our competition robot; they were asking so many questions.” – Chloe Cheng ’23
“My favorite part of the event was walking around and seeing how excited the kids were. It was so fun to see the creative ways they used the blocks and robots. I saw so much creativity and problem-solving in such a short period of time, and it made me feel like we are leaving robotics and STEM in good hands.” – Phoebe Burgis ’23
“My favorite part of the event was when one of my teammates told me that her group created a McDonald’s drive-thru with the blocks and had the Sphero go through them with someone taking its order.” – Penny Chen ’23
“During our trip to Wyland Elementary School, we were particularly focused on ensuring that all the students had exposure to robotics, which we did by reading the book in English and Spanish and letting all the kids experiment with the Spheros. We wanted to create a foundation of robotics at an early age so that the kids would continue to participate in robotics in the future. Overall, I’m really excited by how the event went, and I can’t wait to see all the future engineers!” – Varsha Devisetty ’23