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.
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.
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.
Event Info:
R2D2 – Sponsoring FTC Teams
Walton Robotics is sponsoring two FTC teams for its feeder middle schools, Dickerson Middle School and Dodgen Middle School. The meetings will be held in the Walton Robotics Lab. The information meeting on 3/31/2022 drew a large crowd of interested in joining an FTC Robotics Team. Our upcoming middle school FTC mentorship and hosting project…
Robotics Team at Dickerson or Dodgen?
Interested in Joining a Robotics Team at Dickerson or Dodgen? Walton Robotics is excited to announce our “Project R2D2,” sponsoring two robotics teams for current 6th and 7th grade Dickerson and Dodgen students. If your child is interested in engineering, programming, or public speaking, they might enjoy being on a competitive FTC robotics team. Our…
2022 Walton Robotics Summer Camps
Join our Robotics Team members, Coaches and Mentors for a week of fun and learning featuring robotics, engineering design, and programming. We will be offering an Upper Elementary camp in the morning and a Middle School camp in the afternoon. June 20-23, 2022 In Person at Walton High School Cost: $250 per student Note: Snacks…
Girls FIRST Workshop
Walton Robotics will be hosting a Girls FIRST Event for middle school girls from 9:00am-2:00pm at Walton High School on Saturday, February 5th! Come join us for many fun STEM activities and listen to inspirational women in STEM talk about their careers and answer your questions. Lunch will be served as well. Walton Robotics members…
Computer Science Workshop
Walton Robotics will be hosting a workshop for learning the basics of Java Programming. Classes will be every Monday at 5:15pm-6:00pm on zoom. If you are interested, sign up via the QR code or click on the Register button below. All you need is your laptop. More information will be sent closer to the first…
WPILib Beta Presentation
This is the presentation we used to review the updates to the WPI Robotics Software Library for 2022 during our workshop held on December 11, 2021. WPILib Beta Presentation PowerPoint File WPILib Beta Presentation Google Slide
Types of Events We Have Done:
- 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
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.
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.
Walton Robotics girls at the Novelis OiaB kit build 
Outreach in a Box Earhart Display
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 Engineering 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.
HISTORY:
- We have run, hosted, or participated in more than 17 camps and over 200 outreach events in the last five years which include:
- Walton Robotics NXT/EV3, Java Programming, and VEX camps
- STEM Compass Camp at Georgia Tech
- Boys and Girls Pete Nance Camp
- JT Anderson Boys and Girls Club
- GirlsFIRST Event
- Girls from all over the region, including Tennessee, participated in the GirlsFIRST workshop.
- Keynote speaker: Heather Rocker, president of GAFIRST
- Panelists:
- Valeria Mackey, Coca Cola Company
- Allison Giddens, Win-Tech
- Jessica Osborn, Randstad
- GirlsFIRST Jr.
- Queens:
- We mentor the Queens, an FLL team started by the local Boys and Girls Club.
- The Queens eventually won the state championships!
- Queens:
- We have hosted/participated in over 200 outreach events
- GE Engineers Week
- WIT Connect
- International Women’s Day
- Georgia Science Teacher’s Association Presentation
- STEM Forum Presentation
- National Science Teacher’s Association Presentation