KALW Radio recently profiled a robotics club (known as the “Eaglebots”) at George Washington High School, where students are learning math, science, computer science and engineering skills that can prepare them for a future career in technology.
The club entered a national robotics competition where they competed against 3,000 other teams in Davis, CA. They had six weeks to prepare for the prescribed challenge: to build a robot that can lift and stack big plastic bins.
The students worked every day after school and Saturdays, and relied on YouTube videos and internet searches to help them with the project. They’re building a robot and also writing code to make it perform specific functions.
It’s part of a city-wide focus on technology curriculum in schools that the SF Unified School District, and sponsor Salesforce, have invested in.
The Eaglebots club worked with a neighborhood organization to raise $20,000 from Facebook to help fund the creation of “mechaneagle”, their name for the robot.
Read the full story online or listen to the audio of it below.
We don’t know how they fared at the competition which took place in mid-March. If you do, leave a comment to let us know!
Sarah B.
GWHS class of 89 here. Back then our most advance technology are probably the typewriters in the typewriting class.
I think the KALW report said they didn’t make it past the first round; no matter; great program; go Eagles ! (you don’t want to know what the technology was during my GWHS years; I think iron may have been discovered by then though…)
Wish they had stuff like this for adults too!
Megan, go to Maker Faire (http://makerfaire.com) in May and I guarantee you’ll find adult groups in the Bay Area with whom you can connect who are building robots. The above program was specifically for high school students.