Community Outreach

The community outreach department strives to engage and inspire members of the local and global community to pursue STEM careers and to experience FIRST. Students interact personally with children, teachers, and professionals at many outreach events each year, sharing the message that FIRST is about much more than building robots.

To reach our local community, we demonstrate and present at local elementary and middle schools where we teach children about STEM and FIRST. We also offer three robotics camps where team members act as camp mentors and teach the campers not only how to build and program robots but also how to work together as a team and collaborate. We also work alongside the Pete Nance Boys and Girls Club and Georgia Tech University to run camps.

Most recently, we presented a session on Innovating Community Outreach at the GA FIRST Symposium at Kennesaw State University on Sept 7, 2019.  If you would like to see the presentation, click here.  Another member, also presented about his intriguing experiences during his Novelis internship.

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Our relationships with sponsors are key to what we do. We volunteer at their events, such as GE Engineer’s Week, and help them meet their goals in whatever way we can. One summer we went to Brazil to host a one-week camp for underprivileged children with the help of our sponsor, Novelis. Novelis has especially supported our efforts to empower girls in STEM fields by helping us create and disperse our new product: Walt’s STEM Toolbox. The Toolbox contains both versions of our Outreach in Box kits, Camp in a Can, and our storybook. Our community outreach department strives to inspire the next generation of technological leaders to pursue STEM careers in their future.

Events:

• East Cobb Rotary Dog Days Run
• Pete Nance Boys and Girls Club Summer Camp
• STEM Compass Camp at Georgia Tech
• WIT Connect Event
• Cobb EMC Lego Builds
• Murdock Elementary School Science Fair
• AGA Day of Code Demo
• East Side Elementary Demo
• East Cobber Parade and Festival
• Walton Robotics Camp: Java, NXT, VEX
• GirlsFIRST Workshop
• GirlsFIRST Interview Workshop with Tag Ed
• GirlsFIRST Jr
• Atlanta Science Festival
• GA STEM Day
• Soccer Bot Collaboration with Atlanta Falcons
• GA Tech RoboJackets Symposium and Workshop
• Mentoring Robotics Queens
• Outreach in a Box 3
• Pep Rallies and Football Games
• Volunteer services at Walton High School
• Science Olympiad events
• GA STEM Forum
• GSTA: Georgia Science Teacher’s Association
• Sponsor Family Days
• Novelis Women’s Outreach in a Box Project
• Novelis Zonta International Women’s Day
• GE Engineers Week

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

GirlsFIRST

A few years ago, the girls on the Walton Robotics Team were determined to create a supportive community of girls in FIRST as they saw challenges as well as hope for female involvement in STEM. The result of their hard work was a program called GirlsFIRST, which is a sustained series of events designed to empower female students to pursue careers in STEM and to change the way culture views girls as “more suited” to feminine tasks. Walton Robotics continues to expand this program every year, reaching more girls and building a network with female leaders in STEM industries. The initiative hosts events featuring speakers, panels, small group mentoring, robot scrimmages, engineering activities, and outreach development serving as invaluable opportunities to become involved in a community of girls in STEM and FIRST. The program is for all high school girls, even those who are not on a FIRST team.

An icebreaker activity for participants

Team members and visitors at our GirlsFIRST Event

Outreach-in-a-Box

Outreach-in-a-Box is a kit designed by Walton Robotics to facilitate efforts in inspiring more girls to pursue STEM fields. Our team has developed two versions of Outreach in a Box for our new STEM kit, Walt’s STEM Toolbox. We continue to distribute these kits free of charge to schools, teams, and groups to support STEM education. Outreach in a Box: Earhart is an outreach kit designed to target female students with enough materials to build 50 slingshot rocket projects. The kit also contains handouts about the concepts of aerodynamics and the engineering design process. Outreach in a Box: Curie focuses on chromatography. The kit contains supportive materials, including PET Preforms, markers, and M&Ms, for 50 people to do the activity. In addition to the educational support materials, we have also included information about materials engineering. Our kits are specifically used to support GA STEM Day in Cobb elementary schools.

Outreach in a Box Earhart Display

Walton Robotics girls at the Novelis OiaB kit build

Teams We Support

Team 2974 heavily supports a few local FIRST teams. They include FTC team 4631, The Afterburners; FTC team 4327, East Cobb Robotics; FLL team 18529, The Robotics Queens; and FRC team, 4910 East Cobb Robotics. We support a lot more teams in Georgia through our Destination Einstein program. We provide support in many different ways for the teams listed above. If a team is having trouble with their robot, or need a place to practice, our facility, tools, and aid are at their disposal.

Walton Robotics and East Cobb Robotics with the Robotics Queens

HISTORY: