BOT COMMUNITY BACKGROUND
The co-founders of this beneficial program are Ana Agón and Jack Cooley; they are both experienced middle school teachers. In former times, Ana co-lead with Jack a middle school robotics program called 'The Bots' at The Chapin School, in New York City. The Bots program focuses mainly on developing STEM-robotics skills in young girls. As the young girls enhanced their design and programming skills, they began joining competitions. These competitions included: FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and RoboCupJunior. The Chapin teams have earned a multitude of awards at competitions, such as the coveted Champion’s Award at the New York City FLL Championship. They have also gone on to compete against teams from throughout the United States and the world.
Ana is a veteran Spanish teacher, born in Columbia, and has worked with middle school girls for years. Jack on the other hand started the Chapin’s Bots program in 2012 and oversees it and is also a Science teacher and head of department.
The community bots program is all about the training of middle school girls in the area of STEM-Robotics. These young girls are comprised of those who live in impoverished communities around the world. The Mandeville Primary and Junior High School, located in Mandeville, Jamaica, was one of the lucky ones that had been chosen to be a part of this extraordinary program. The founders of the program realized that the best suited age group for it was the middle school age group. This is when children are more eager to learn and more willing to try new things. The founders of this program really started it as a result of the lack of females and stereotypes against women in the STEM career fields. If not, it could’ve resulted in the decline of career opportunities in this rapid growing career field. They are now trying to counter that problem by providing hands on STEM-robotics courses and donating equipment to school and after-school programs. Not only are the students involved, they have integrated the teachers as well. They train the teachers on how to make the activities more fun and interactive, all while making the students cognizant of women’s achievements in this career. The introductory courses to STEM-robotics usually lasts for a week.
In addition, even after the one week period, the members of the program still try to be involved with the students and the school by ensuring that the curriculum and resources are viable. Once the school and after school programs are able to simulate the curriculum on their own over a two year period, they are given updated robotics equipment along with continuous support.
ABOUT EVENT
In the heart of Mandeville, the Community Bots program was led by Mr. Cooley and Dr. Forrester, amongst others. This event was hosted at the Mandeville Primary and Junior High School, located on Caledonia Road. The primary objective of this event was to inspire and to influence female students to partake in engineering and in particular, robotics. Statistical data have shown that 80% of the engineering faculty, especially robotics have been dominated by males. This event educated female students of this matter and also included some hands on/ interactive activities such as assembling robot trucks. As a side note, at the event, Mr. Cooley stated that these robot trucks were made of various sensors which included a light sensor, a distance sensor and many more.
In order to instill and demonstrate teamwork, Mr. Cooley grouped the females into pairs, so that they could compete in a robot truck face-off, on the final day. These pairs were assigned with names of various countries that are apart of or a member of the Bot community. This event also comprised of music native to the Jamaica as well as the USA culture since most of these female students could relate to these kind of music. Also, the students were given an inspirational speech, which was customary, before the beginning of the activities. Throughout the period of the event, all stakeholders of the Mandeville Primary educational institution were supportive of these students and were very proud to be one of the first Primary Schools to have hosted such event.
On the concluding day, all the female students that participated, were given medals and certificates for their hard work and determination. Overall, the event had been one that has exposed these Jamaican girls to new technologies that could make a difference in the Jamaican society and furthermore, the world. Additionally, the Community Bot program donated twenty (20) computers to the Mandeville Primary and Junior High School. This will further involve technology in the educational/learning process, as well as providing exposure and experience to these young female students.
EVENT REVIEW
It was an amazing presentation showing how the girls were able to master the art of operating robots. Teachers, students and visitors were all intrigued and excited to see how young girls were able to use the robots and carry out their given tasks. Competitions were used to illustrate how well the girls were able to retain and apply what they had learnt.
After such an exciting presentation, the principal at the Mandeville Primary and Junior High School showed his reciprocity to Mr. Cooley and Dr. Forester for all they have done - bringing such a positive influence to the girls and everyone that was a part of the program and all. He presented two plaques honoring the individuals and their company for their tremendous work and their consistency in working with the young ladies for the past two weeks. Teachers and parents also gave their speeches, expressing appreciation for their child/children to have been a part of such a wonderful experience.
This event was obviously tremendous since it was the first of its kind hosted in a primary institution in Jamaica. This event will not just benefit females, but the wider Jamaica and the world. With this growing technological age – The Sensor - new technologies and innovations have positioned the world’s labor force to a more capital intensive labor force, where more machines are used to carry out the daily tasks of humans. Inclusively, at this event, the Principal of the Mandeville Primary School announced that he was going to prioritize this robotic program for his students by refurbishing an existing building on the school’s campus to facilitate this program.
With a pause in the positives, there was only one minor issue found with this event. It was that the teams did not represent the various countries that they were assigned to; they weren’t easy to distinguish. As a recommendation for this, one could let the teams wear T-Shirts or wrist bands with the flags or colors of the flags of the various countries that they were representing.
From the point of view of anyone with a heart, it is plain to see that this program is one of the best programs they could offer for females to participate in. To reiterate, this is an opportunity for Jamaica to become acquainted with these technologies and also an opportunity for the creative people of Jamaica to express themselves through creating or innovating robots for competitions and other events globally. This could also influence the Jamaican Government and the Private sector to invest in these robots as a means of becoming a first world country.
These machines could be used to aid in and to improve the manufacturing sector which could result in more local produce. Consequently, imports could be decreased and exports be increased, thus the country may be more progressive in terms of becoming a first world country. This could also result in an increase in GDP of Jamaica. However, often times, since these programs are not supported by the Government nor the private sector, these events are terminated or discontinued due to the financial difficulties or the lack of support. A proposal should be brought to the Government in order to continue these programs. This proposal should just focus on providing standardized training for instructors and youths and providing the necessary resources.
Photo from this event!
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