OUTREACHES

Project RAD, Robotics Against Disease, is a project that team ELITE began in 2020, when the pandemic had just struck the world. The team had decided to continue the project in an effort to fight against COVID-19.  

Within this project, our team has raised money and delivered massive amounts of  PPE around the world. Our team decided to do this by using the December break to bring home Lulzbot printers which were used to print 100 visors. These visors were assembled with the team after the break and then distributed to local businesses and hospitals that were struggling  due to the outbreak of the new Omicron variant of the virus. 

We also have several coding classes for students at every level!

• Coding with ELITE which teaches kids how to make stories, games, and animations using Scratch 
• Coding with ELITE Junior utilizes Scratch Jr.  to allow younger kids to be exposed to coding through simple games. 
• Python with ELITE teaches students ages 11-13 the fundamentals of programming and Python through a platform called Replit

In order to overcome teaching restrictions due to the pandemic,  we used the platforms, TinkerCAD, and Onshape to teach kids in our community how to CAD in our class called the CADemy.  

We created a more advanced versions of the class:

• CADemy Advanced. 
• CADemy Pro 

We bring creativity and technology together to enable students in our community to use the skills we taught them to make anything that they can imagine

Once the pandemic began dying down, our team attempted to bring back in person outreach. This  is why we created a new class:

• EDP with ELITE!

In these classes we teach students how to make their very own robots!  We teach our  students how to build and program  mBots. These classes required no previous experience, so we saw all types of kids, who were excited and ready to join the STEM world.

After the major successes in our local STEM Classes, we decided to reach out to an old team member, Mayu, in Japan in order to create international versions of our STEM Classes. With these STEM Classes we have been able to teach high school students in Tokyo, Japan the basics of how to CAD using the platform TinkerCAD. While ELITE taught these classes, they were also able to learn about international culture and learn a little bit of their language as well as teaching the international students English. Through this project, our team was able to start by impacting 8 international students in Tokyo, Japan. Currently, our team has reached out to multiple high schools in the United Kingdom and India regarding our classes. In the near future, the team will be running virtual classes all over the world in order to increase our team’s impact on the world. 

During our teams February break, we decided to make the most of it by giving back to our community by creating 3 completely new types of in person outreaches! We spent time at The Center For Science Teaching & Learning twice during the week.  First we did an earthquake project with the kids where they built bridges and we tested they’re strength.  The kids enjoyed the project so much that we came back a few days later to do a robot demonstration for them.

Alumni from the Robotics Club and Women in STEM Club were invited to the high school to offer advice to students. The panel lasted for  2 hour and featured 10 panelists from various schools such as Harvard and Columbia University. The event was open to the public to attend and it was a great opportunity to receive advice on college and insight in studying to have a career in STEM. On March 13th, our team is set to have a virtual worldwide panel with 9 panelists and over 200 attendees.

STEM Fest was our first major successful in-person outreach event since Covid hit. Students from our online CAD and programming  classes (CADemy, Scratch, and Scratch Jr.) were invited to attend this event to see the robots in person. Our team recreated this event  on  September 4th because of how successful it was the first time. The festival featured multiple tents, each with a specific robot for visitors to explore. Our tents included M-Bot soccer, painting with spheros, and flying drones. To adhere to covid guidelines, we limited the amount of visitors per a session, took temperatures of visitors, and required liability forms to be filled out.