4-H Family STEM Day Features Robots and Pollinators
Members of the 4-H ALARM Robotics club prep Siren, their robot, before the start of 4-H Family STEM Day.
On a bright, chilly Saturday in late October, more than 50 prospective and returning 4-H’ers and their parents/guardians gathered at the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst in Newton for the inaugural 4-H Family STEM Day. Listening to 4-H Educators, youths eagerly crowded around a large robot, clamoring for a chance to “hand” their new mechanical friend a white cone.
The event, which was sponsored by MathWorks and was a joint effort between the Massachusetts 4-H program and the Massachusetts 4-H Foundation, featured not only the robot, but also speakers, demonstrations, and hands-on workshops for ages 5-12.
Both the 4-H ALARM Robotics and Ashland Innovation 4-H clubs delivered presentations on their robot design process and machine learning, respectively. The morning also featured a youth presentation on pollinators and how to help them flourish, a presentation also delivered at the Ignite for 4-H Summit in conjunction with the Corteva Agriscience Grows Pollinator Habitat program. These youths hope to expand pollinator gardens to local high schools.
After the presentations, participants had the opportunity to “meet” Siren, a 130-pound robot designed by 4-H ALARM Robotics. They gave the robot a cone and watched it raise the object to a height specified by voice commands.
Two girls work on creating a robot at 4-H Family STEM Day.
Following their time with Siren, the day moved to hands-on workshops. Children aged 8+ worked in teams to build their own miniature robots and then raced them! In another room, youths constructed paper circuits. Cloverbuds aged 5-7 learned about electricity from Kim Pond, 4-H Military and S.E.T. Liaison who designed the 4-H STEM Day program. In the afternoon, attendees had the opportunity to launch bottle rockets and engage in engineering with hydraulics. Cloverbuds tried out Ozobots, which helped them learn coding.
Dhatri Daggubati, a member of 4-H ALARM Robotics who taught a 3D Design workshop for youths 8+, enjoyed the day. “Our team had a wonderful time participating in 4-H STEM Day. The kids were highly engaged, asked great questions, and were very interested in learning more about robotics and STEM,” said Daggubati. “Thanks to you all, we had the opportunity to share our work, bringing it to the next generation of STEM students, sparking a new hobby that the kids could take interest in for a potential lifelong career.”
Throughout the day, teens from 4-H ALARM Robotics and Ashland Innovation 4-H clubs helped younger youth with activities. 4-H STEM Day made science and technology accessible to youths of all ages and generated interest in Massachusetts 4-H club participation. Thank you to MathWorks for sponsoring this event!
