{"id":3638,"date":"2017-09-11T17:47:58","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T22:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/?p=3638"},"modified":"2020-08-17T17:36:07","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T17:36:07","slug":"robotic-program-helps-students-build-stem-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/2017\/09\/11\/robotic-program-helps-students-build-stem-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Robotic program helps students build STEM skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kplctv.com\/story\/36295274\/robotic-program-helps-students-build-stem-skills\">KPLC<\/a><br \/>\nTuesday, September 5th 2017, 6:20 pm CDT<br \/>\nBy Jolina Okazaki, Multimedia Journalis<\/p>\n<p><code><script type='text\/javascript' src='http:\/\/kplc.images.worldnow.com\/interface\/js\/WNVideo.js?rnd=438651607;hostDomain=www.kplctv.com;playerWidth=504;playerHeight=284;isShowIcon=true;clipId=13677666;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=fixed'><\/script><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kplctv.com\" title=\"KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana\">KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana<\/a><\/code><\/p>\n<p>MIDLAND, TX (KWES) &#8211;<br \/>\nA STEM robotics program at Lee High School is allowing students to put their engineering skills to good use.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It takes brainpower, you can&#8217;t just come up with it out of nowhere,&#8221; said Cristian Valeriano.<\/p>\n<p>It brings science, math and technology to the next level.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The nice thing about it is you step back and help them if they need help,&#8221; said Alan Pitkin, Career and Technical Education Teacher of STEM Robotics. &#8220;You want them to use their brain to think and problem solve. Say, &#8216;Hey Google something, see how something works, see how the real world is using it and implement it in your robot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Building a robot isn&#8217;t as easy as it looks. It takes brainstorming, teamwork, problem-solving, executing and trial-and-error.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Building takes a lot of precision,&#8221; said Christian Martinez. &#8220;It&#8217;s really key to this. One small mishap can ruin the whole thing. Building takes a lot of hours. After school, we come, on weekends and in the summer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we first got started, it was grasping an idea,&#8221; said Valeriano. &#8220;First, it&#8217;s where to start. We make the wheels and build off from there. We need to pick up a ball, we need something to pick up a ball. It&#8217;s piece by piece.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Every year, students in the program learn and prepare for a robotics competition towards the end of the year called First Robotics. It&#8217;s one of the biggest competitions where teams build robots and compete against each other and win scholarships. But it doesn&#8217;t come cheap and only a small portion of school funds are used with help from the MISD Education Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you have to go to regionals, like Georgia, it&#8217;s $12,000 to $15,000,&#8221; said Pitkin. &#8220;Houston is $5,000. It also depends on how many kids you take. Some of these kids haven&#8217;t been out of Midland. I give them the experience and see what the world is doing. Midland isn&#8217;t that far out and Midland can compete with anybody.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The program has become successful thanks to the Midland Independent School District Education Foundation and its sponsors from SM Energy, the J Robert Jones Charitable Trust Foundation and Pioneer. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They see a value in giving your money to the school for robotics,&#8221; said Pitkin. &#8220;It&#8217;s all being put to good use.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But these funds are what get the gears turning for these students to become successful and inspire the next generation of engineers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s beneficial to learn now then get put out in the world and not know what to do,&#8221; said Valeriano.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to go to A&#038;M, which has a good engineering program as far as architecture,&#8221; said Martinez. &#8220;I feel like this will help me get there and achieve it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>To help and sponsor the program, you can contact Jami Owen with the MISD Education Foundation here. <\/p>\n<p>There will be a Phillip Phillips concert that will benefit the MISD Education Foundation this Saturday, Sept. 9, 8:00 p.m. at the Midland County Horseshoe Amphitheater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From: KPLC Tuesday, September 5th 2017, 6:20 pm CDT By Jolina Okazaki, Multimedia Journalis KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana MIDLAND, TX (KWES) &#8211; A STEM robotics program at Lee High School is allowing students to put their engineering skills &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/2017\/09\/11\/robotic-program-helps-students-build-stem-skills\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robot-news","category-teaching_tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4872,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638\/revisions\/4872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}