Area students go to pieces for robots

Some children are interested in participating in extracurricular activities like sports or student council, but an increasing number of students are participating in after-school robotics programs.

Elementary students from Rancho Viejo Elementary School and junior high students from Crane, Centennial and Woodard middle schools attended a FIRST Lego League robotics team state-wide competition in Scottsdale earlier this month and won two trophies and medals for their work.

The FIRST Lego League is a robotics program that helps make science and technology fun for students in the classroom, ranging in age from 9 to 14, and also teaches valuable employment and life skills.

“Teams, comprised of up to 10 children with at least one adult coach, can also be associated with a pre-existing club or organization, homeschooled, or just be a group of friends who wish to do something awesome,” stated the program's website.

Jenny Kaste, a GAP (Gowan Achievement Program) teacher at Rancho Viejo Elementary School and robotics team coach, explained that she is an avid supporter of the program and is hoping to organize a local competition in Yuma next year, which would require 12 teams to exist in the area.

Students are judged in four areas, she said, including how well the robot was designed, the competition, teamwork and the biomedical engineering research project.

She explained that for the research project, they had local physicians come in as guest speakers for their themed topics that ranged from asthma to brain tumors.

Judi Williams, a math teacher at Castle Dome and robotics team coach, said that they had engineers from the Yuma Proving Ground visit the class regularly to provide guidance to the students as they worked through their projects.

“I think everything that we can do to connect school to real life is really important,” said Williams.

Kaste added that programs like this help make subjects like math and science interesting to students and that is important because at least 80 percent of jobs in the future will be math, science or technology based.

Plus, students are not only learning, but having fun and making new friends in the process.

“It was very fun, and I made a lot of friends,” said Antonio Rivera, an eighth-grade student from Centennial, in reference to the robotics program.

Rancho Viejo sixth-grader Abby Kern explained because she was excelling at math and science she decided to pursue this program to combine two of her favorite subjects.

Kern was one of the team leaders and said, “I had to direct them and tell them what they needed to do without yelling at them or being bossy,” she said with a laugh, adding that the experience helped her learn valuable leadership skills.

Another sixth-grader from Rancho Viejo, Andrew Musselman, said that he decided to join the program because he liked building Legos and he thought it would be a good challenge.

“I enjoyed meeting other players and figuring out new ideas for our robot to make it better,” he said, noting that before the program he wanted to become a lawyer but is now considering becoming an engineer.

The program is a wonderful opportunity for students but also very expensive, Kaste explained, adding that teams must buy a robot, and a field set-up kit and also pay for registration fees and travel expenses for competition.

She explained that this year, seven of the Yuma teams received scholarships and support from the community, and she hopes to see that increase in the future.

“If we can increase the amount of financial support from the community I know other teachers would be interested in starting teams,” Kaste said.

To learn more about the program visit www.firstlegoleague.org, and to form a local team, contact Kaste for more information at jkaste@crane-gap.org or 928-580-5526.

Sarah Womer can be reached at swomer@yumasun.com or 539-6858.