Mr. Worboys Sparks Innovation: Mentoring the Next Generation of NYM Engineers

Physics Teacher Mr. Worboys, in collaboration with Kindergarten Teacher Mrs. Hickel, has launched a new Elementary Robotics Club this year. This initiative is serving as a trial run to teach young students how to build, code and use robots to solve challenges creatively.

The new elementary club is an extension of the successful middle/high school STEM Club, which is already connecting computer programming, robot building and 3D printing to the community. For example, the older students built interactive robots for Trunk-or-Treat — one that danced and one that dispensed candy.

A core component of the Robotics Club is mentorship, as the older STEM students anticipate helping to coach the elementary participants. The ultimate goal is to prepare the elementary teams to build robots that can perform challenges on a “FIRST LEGO League” competition table, a component of a contest designed to bring students from around the world together to connect at high-energy local and global events that celebrate creativity, collaboration and innovation.

Both clubs are designed to teach students essential academic and social skills, including engineering, coding, problem solving, strategizing and working collaboratively.

As Mr. Worboys puts it, "We hope that the students get excited to build robots and we hope that along the way, they can see how they can use robots to make the world around them a better place."