Above: An elementary school student works on building a robot in Team 1100’s 2nd annual workshop (Photo contributed)
ARHS Robotics Team 1100’s mentor Stephanie Nardone asked me to share their story. This weekend, the team taught its 2nd annual Build Your Own Robot workshop. Local 3rd-5th grade students registered and came to learn from the high school robotics team.
Working in the Robotics rooms at Algonquin, students were given individualized tours, demos of FLL Lego, Vex, and FIRST robots, and instructions to each build a robot from a kit.
Dan Strickland, lead mentor for Team 1100, and the high school students worked with the children to explain engineering terms such as gears, gearboxes, linkage rods, motors, and switches, and to show them how each works with hands-on opportunities. The children were thoroughly engaged and very much enjoyed their experience. And they were very proud of the robots they built.
The high school students who volunteered were fantastic! They worked on Friday evening to prepare for the event and each of them exhibited great patience and guidance while sharing their enthusiasm for science, engineering and robotics. When picking up their children, the parents noted how impressed they are with these high school students and with how willing and comfortable the older students are sharing their knowledge with the younger kids. Many of these parents and kids also attended the Team 1100 demonstrations at Northborough’s Applefest or Southborough’s Heritage Day and were equally impressed then.
