
I love finding opportunities for my love of helping young people learn new skills and my love for engineering get to overlap. Last year, I was able to start a small robotics club for elementary school aged children at my church (Cornerstone Christian Fellowship). This is a great opportunity for children to learn some basic engineering and computer programming skills while having a great time competing in area robotics tournaments. The kids in the Cornerstone Robotics Club participate in a program called VEX IQ which puts on a new challenge each year for the kids to design and build a robot to compete in. Learn more about this year’s VEX IQ competition from this overview video. The kids meet each week throughout the year building, testing, and revising their robots and then go to competition in the winter. Last season, the club was able to send students to two tournaments where they proved to be very competitive for a first year team. This year the club is growing by adding a second team with younger kids eager to get involved.
As you can imagine a program like this requires quite a bit of financial commitment to be able to purchase parts, cover registration fees etc. So, not only do I get to coach the team, but I also have been able to partner with my friend, Dave, over at Energy Windows LLC to sponsor the club. We both are so happy to be able to chip in and help cover the costs so these kids can participate in the program. We look forward to seeing what cool robots they design and build through the fall as they prepare for the upcoming winter tournaments.