STEM + Stories: Robotics

Ozobot in action

This summer I am doing a monthly program called Stories + STEM. Each meeting, we'll have a different topic and we will read a story or biography and then have different stations with activities related to the topic. This program is for ages 5-12 and I limited it to 40 kids at a time. June's topic was robotics.

I read two books: Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep! by Todd Tarpley and Oh No!: Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World by Mac Barnett. Then I divided the children into three groups and they visited three stations in a rotation.

Two of the stations were competition robots from the local high schools' robotics teams. The children were able to drive the robots, learn how they were built, and ask questions of the students on the teams. The coaches were also there supervising.

The last station was run by one of the robotics coaches who brought a set of 8 Ozobots to the program and showed the kids how to program them using paper and colored markers. I was not familiar with Ozobots before the program and they are so cool!

This was a simple program to put together and made an awesome community collaboration between us and our nearest public and Catholic high schools. The robotics coaches actually reached out to us to hold a program during Robotics At Your Library Week, a Michigan initiative to have robots visit every library in the state between June 19-June 25 this year. We had 78 people attend, including parents and grandparents. We are hoping to repeat this program (or one very similar) next year!