Soccer-playing robots expose NYC students to summertime STEM

Unlike most of his peers, high school-student Manny Merino didn’t take a break in July. He spent the past four weeks studying math and engineering at Brooklyn Collegiate Academy.
“Right now, we’re working on our final project,” he said, pointing to a hexagon-shaped building model he and his team are putting together. Merino said that the construction is meant to support solar panels. “It produces energy for the building and for the surroundings,” he said.
In a nearby room, a girl was fixing her two-way radio, while further away, a boy was working on improving robots that play soccer.

Brooklyn Collegiate is one of 10 New York City schools that provide elementary, middle and high school children with free summer classes in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Divided in groups, students from 2nd to 10th grade have been working on various math and engineering assignments for the past four weeks from 8:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m., Monday through Thursday. The program ends Aug. 6. It’s funded by the city’s Education Department with help from Microsoft. The entire program costs $2 million.
Most of the students were “completely new” to STEM, said Mary Lawton, site supervisor for the STEM summer program, and assistant principal at Philippa Schuyler Middle School.
Lawton, who wore a black and white polka-dot dress and pink shoes, said the summer program is designed to help students develop “critical thinking and hands-on, problem-solving skills.” Before building the soccer-playing robots, for example, students learn about coding and sensors. The robots were controlled by a remote control via Bluetooth, and were designed to move on wheels, detect obstacles and play with a small ball.
Well, in theory, at least. In a one-minute video shown by Lawton, the robots roam around a miniature court just fine but barely touch the ball. Creating the robots from scratch is the exciting part, Lawton said.

“Folks always ask where we’re going to get our next engineers,” mathematicians, and other workers working in the technology field, Lawton said. “STEM is the way to go.”
“It has just reminded me that hands-on is very important,” said Geedee Baba, one of the teachers at the summer STEM program. Baba, who works for the Board of Education and teaches physics and chemistry at Doctor Susan McKinney Secondary School of Arts, would like young students to have the opportunity to take STEM classes throughout the school year. “The curriculum is there,” she said, “it could be implemented this year.”
Lawton agrees: “In the regular curriculum and in after-school programs, I would see that happening,” she said. “I could see STEM fit right in.”
Lawton and Baba hope this — a few hundred elementary, middle and high school students discovering STEM during the summer months — is a key first step.