Robotics Workshop

Introducing Technology to Girls in San Jose, California

Robotics workshop participants

August 18, 2019: CIMI sponsored and hosted a robotics workshop over three weekends (August 3, 10, 17 2019). Girls from elementary and middle schools in San Jose participated in these half-day events to learn about building robots and coding. This program exposed the girls to technology that are not available to them at their public schools. Engineers from Bay Area technology companies served as volunteers. They provided girls with guidance for robot building and also served as role models. 

Program Day:

Walk, Breakfast, Build & Code, Lunch, Reports

8:00 a.m. Walk 

The girls arrived at Campbell Community Center with their mothers and other family members. Before building the robots, the girls and their mothers participated in physical exercise. They walked around the track. Physical exercise like running and walking stimulates the blood flow through their bodies. Regular physical activity can improve mood and has a positive effect on self-esteem and stress management. 

9:00 a.m. Breakfast with Family

CIMI provided light breakfast for the girls and her family.

9:30 a.m. Robotics and Coding

CIMI provided girls with robots from VEX IQ. These kits are designed to provide girls with fun, engaging, and hands-on experience of building robots from scratch. It naturally encourages teamwork, problem solving, and leadership while they learn about science, technology, engineering, and math.

12:30 p.m. Lunch

1:00 p.m. Reports

The workshop day wrapped up with reports from the girls on what they learned. These are some of the quotes from them.

oday I learned a lot of technology and how to build a robot.  Also at first I really did not want to learn anything about technology, but now I know technology is fun to do. Thanks to CIMI I like technology

Anonymous

I liked when we were building the robot, being in a team with different people and CIMI.

-  Isabella, 5th grade

I like how were helping each other. I like to build the robot because it is like a puzzle. I am having fun.

- Fernanda, 5th grade

I really liked meeting new people and working together. Building the robot was very fun. I loved working with CIMI.

- Aba (8th grade)

Today was an awesome experience. I learned how to use technology and many other things that I did not know. I also enjoyed helping the other team. CIMI is an awesome program for kids. I also learned how to communicate with other people.

- Perla (6th grade)