Mater Lakes Academy began offering a robotics course this school year, a Project Lead the Way course. This course is part of the STEM coursework and curriculum being offered at the school.
The Robotics class, made up of students between grades 8-11, has been working on various projects throughout the year but none as exciting as the one they just completed.
“Their assignment was to build a pull toy of their design for young children as their client. My students love to build, so they were eager,” said Amy Garcia, robotics teacher. “The students now had to go a step beyond when designing their pull toy because they had to think what would appeal to these 4-5 years old.”
Garcia had the perfect focus group for her students, Mater Lakes Academy’s “Cub Academy” students. Early Childhood is another course part of the STEM framework at Mater Lakes Academy. The students enrolled in this program work with the preschool aged children at Cub Academy and are their teachers.
“The children were very excited to see and play with these pull toys. Especially, since it’s not the typical toys these children play with,” said Joanna Mansfield, Early Childhood Education Program Director. “They were very impressed to know that they were actually designed and created by the students in Garcia’s class.”
“My students were very nervous about the reactions their clients’ would have. One student even came back and said he was glad that their design didn’t get roasted by the four year olds,” joked Garcia. “My students were relieved when they saw the preschool students having a good time with their designs.”
As for those students who did not impress their young, but very opinionated, clients were faced with another opportunity to learn. They were then challenged to re-think their design and come up with another more pleasing design.
“The students in Garcia’s class were surprised to see which of their toys the children favored the most,” said Mansfield.
The students in the robotics class came back two days later with their new and improved designs and the Cub Academy students chose their best design. In first place was the design by Frank Zequeira and Gabriel Ramirez. In second place was the design by Frank Gabriela Diaz and Ryan Castanedo.
Mater Lakes Academy will continue to foster partnerships and activities across program, especially those in the STEM-related courses and programs. Foundations of Robotics is a Project Lead the Way course, and it’s the first year that Mater Lakes is offering it.
These students will continue to take other courses in the engineering field, such as Engineering and Robotics level 1 and 2. The Early Childhood Education program is in its fourth year and prepares high school students to not only graduate with their high school diploma but with an industry certification, Florida Child Care Professional Certificate (formerly known as CDA). Students also could earn college credits from Miami-Dade College, depending on their major.