K-12 Robotics STEM Initiatives and High School Programs at Poly
Something interesting that started happening with Poly robotics around the 2000s was that it became the center of sponsoring K-12 STEM outreach, seemingly all at once. Poly pushed for major initiatives to promote young STEM students' involvement, but this was their most progressive push in robotics yet. Poly started hosting robotics events with pre-college students and inviting primary and secondary students into robotics research labs to learn more about STEM, using robotics as the medium.
In January of 2008, Polytechnic University hosted hundreds of K-12 students at a “robot jam” where “students ages 9 to 14” worked in teams to solve challenges based on real-life problems with the help of adult mentors, researching, designing, building, and programming “robotic creations to carry out a series of missions on table-top playing fields.” (University, 2008). This event was likely hosted to inspire these young students to pursue STEM careers, possibly encouraging them to apply to universities such as Poly in the future.
(Polytechnic University, January 2008)
(Polytechnic University, January 2008)
(Polytechnic University, January 2008)
(Polytechnic University, January 2008)
In addition, from 2003 to 2009, Professor Vickram Kapila was the driving force behind the K-12 robotics STEM outreach program at Poly. Kapila conducted research on LEGO Mindstorms-based science and math activities, developed under an NSF GK-12 Fellows project, for elementary, middle, and high school grades (Williams, Igel, Poveda, & Kapila, 2012). The activities aimed to address pertinent learning objectives and adhere to the science and math learning standards of New York City and State, with the effectiveness of these activities measured through LEGO Mindstorms-based lab activities in science and math lessons and pre- and post-lesson assessment surveys (Williams, Igel, Poveda, & Kapila, 2012). Kapila proved to be very successful in his field, as he is cited as being responsible for mentoring undergraduate students in addition to over 126 high school student researchers, 18 undergraduate GK-12 STEM Fellows, and 59 graduate GK-12 STEM Fellows (Dhruv Avdhesh, 2022). He is also known for directing K-12 education, “training, mentoring, and outreach programs that engaged over 500 teachers to integrate engineering concepts in science classrooms and labs of dozens of New York City public schools, impacting over 16,000 students” (Dhruv Avdhesh, 2022).
In an interview with New York One News, New York Tonight, Professor Kapila is featured on his summer program teaching NYC high school teachers on how to bring Mechatronics into the classrooms, where he describes the SMART (Science and Mechatronics Aided Research for Teachers) projects (Poly Archives New York One News, 2003).
The images below showcase some of the robotics projects used in Professor Kapila’s K-12 outreach initiatives, as well as demonstrations of those devices with adults and children. They include additional images of the SMART lab and photos of teachers using robotics with their students under Kapila’s influence.
(Polytechnic University, 2003-2009)
(Polytechnic University, 2003-2009)
(Polytechnic University, 2003-2009)
(Polytechnic University, August 9th 2010)
(Polytechnic University, August 9th 2010)
(Polytechnic University, July 14th 2011)
(Polytechnic University, July 14th 2011)
Now, Professor Kapila was not the only professor participating in K-12 student STEM outreach at Poly, though he seemed the most involved in the efforts. Professor Maurizio Porfiri was a robotics professor best known for his innovation, the “robotic fish,” which could integrate with real aquatic organisms in the ocean to study their species (Contributors, 2012). This was the most heavily advertised robotic advancement at Poly in the early 2000s, appearing in brochures, yearbooks, and on websites.
Through Porfiri’s groundbreaking robotics research, he also launched initiatives to immerse young primary school students in his work, encouraging them to pursue STEM careers. Professor Porfiri also contributed to the following research paper titled “An Attraction Toward Engineering Careers: The Story of a Brooklyn Outreach Program for K12 Students,” where he details with other authors how they developed and executed “ robotics-based outreach program designed to ignite K-12 students’ interests in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and attract them toward engineering careers”(Abaid, Kopman, & Porfiri, 2013). Below are images of Porfiri’s STEM outreach, as depicted in his robot fish research labs.
(Polytechnic University, March 31st, 2011)
(Polytechnic University, March 31st, 2011)
(Polytechnic University, June 7th 2010)
But why was Brooklyn Poly launching major initiatives to host large numbers of central Brooklyn public school kids, using robotics as the inspiration, when the school was not pursuing many other robotics initiatives? Could it have been that this was more of a marketing initiative to make the school look better, rather than any aspiration to further the progression of robotics as a whole? While Porfini was letting young students shadow his research, his work was the only evidence of any robotics innovation at the school at the time.
Buying lots of LEGO robotics kits is much cheaper for a university than investing in collegiate robotics labs, programs, or majors. Interestingly, Poly was using robotics to encourage younger students while neglecting it for their enrolled students, but many other competing universities were doing the same after the accessibility of robotics kits like LEGO Mindstorms (Anwar, Bascou, Menekse, & Kardgar, 2019). Why was this such a push for Poly compared to robotics at the school as a whole? One of the biggest leaders in K-12 pre-college STEM initiatives was Purdue University, which already had some of the largest university robotics initiatives of any school in the US, so why was Poly only now following in its footsteps with this (Anwar, Bascou, Menekse, & Kardgar, 2019)?