2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

STEAM Outreach Incorporating K-12 Teachers and Youth Robotics Workshops

Presented at Krusty's Creations: Robotics and Electronics in Springfield STEAM, Hey Hey!

This paper reviews the ongoing Adventures in Robotics (AIR) Program’s Summer Youth Workshops and the associated AIR Teacher Workshop at Pittsburg State University (Pittsburg, KS).  The summer youth workshops consist of two, week-long sessions providing hands-on STEAM-related activities on the topics of programming, teamwork, brainstorming, robotic basics, and construction techniques (including an age-appropriate introduction to mechatronics).  These workshops have been ongoing for 20+ years and provide a STEAM alternative to athletics-related summer camp options in the southeast Kansas region for students 9-13 years of age.

The AIR Teacher Workshop was developed and implemented in 2022 with the support of a sub-award from the Kansas NASA Space Grant Consortium. In the 11-day teacher workshop, area K-12 teachers work with the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime set, a STEAM learning tool designed for grades 6-8, which combines Lego with easy-to-use hardware and a drag-and-drop programming language based on Scratch.

Teachers received hands-on training in a one-day boot camp at the start of the Workshop to familiarize them with the LEGO SPIKE system.  Teacher Participants then assisted through the two, week-long summer youth workshops, gaining hands-on teaching experience by mentoring teams of students.  This provided a unique hands-on training environment for the teachers, simulating utilization of the AIR workshop materials and LEGO SPIKE system in a classroom environment.

Continued work towards the development of a mobile roadshow version of the AIR workshops will also be presented, as will metrics on student demographics and STEAM topic exposure. The roadshow concept, whereby a subset of the week-long summer program is presented in a four to six-hour format was beta-tested in October of 2022.  The intent of the roadshow is to bring robotics educational opportunities to under-represented and economically limited communities. The authors continue to seek funding to implement the concept fully.

Authors

Mr. Norman Henry Philipp P.E., Ed.S. Pittsburg State University [biography]

Norman's professional work experience includes consulting and lecturing on Construction Management, Architecture, Engineering Design, and Project Management. Mr. Philipp recently completed an educational specialist degree (Ed. S.) in continuation of his dual bachelors and dual masters degrees in the fields of Architecture and Engineering (B.Arch., M.Arch., B.S., M.S.). Mr. Philipp currently serves as a full professor in the College of Technology at Pittsburg State University.
Prof. Randy Winzer Pittsburg State University [biography]

Randy Winzer is a Professor in the Engineering Technology department at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS; he served as the EET program coordinator from 2002 until 2007. He holds both BS and MS degrees in Engineering Technology and has several years of experience supporting various information technology infrastructure projects; primarily those in support of educational content delivery and K-12 education. The past twenty-one summers Professor Winzer has conducted a STEM outreach effort titled ‘Adventures in Robotics’ which has had over 1,000 local K-12 participants.
Byron Keith McKay

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