Our Robotics Education Specialist, Adria Fung, worked with the UH Mānoa College of Education (COE) Assistant Professors Aaron Sickel and Stacy George to host the first Bot Builders Code Camp (B2C2) in July. This camp provided 16 elementary school educators and undergraduate teacher candidates with an introduction to robotics and engineering principles to simulate NASA missions using VEX GO and VEX 123 robots. The participants completed various STEM activities, such as building spaceships, manipulating variables of their supercars, and programmed rovers to collect samples on Mars. In addition, they learned how to integrate robotics projects into multiple content areas, such as Math, English Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies in their classrooms. Adria explained, "with the rollout of Computer Science standards in the elementary classrooms, the goal is to provide teacher professional development in how robotics can be used as a real-world computer science project for students learning about STEM."
