Stemiverse 0021 - Lael Grant on the benefits of competitive educational robotics

Summary:

In this episode, Peter and Marcus talk with Lael Grant.

Lael is computer programming teacher at Barker College, based in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby, in Australia.

At the College, Lael is the team co-ordinator and part of the mentor team of the Barker Redbacks. The Redbacks have established themselves as one of the leading Robotics teams in Australia. When Lael is not planning the future of robotics and STEM education at Barker, he teaches programming as a part of the Computer Science faculty.

We interviewed Lael and two student members of the Redback team at the Barker College campus. The result is a two-part episode in which we discuss the importance of using robotics as a vehicle to develop multiple skillsets and attidutes in students.

In this first episode, Lael talks about Robotics education in Barker College, and the benefits of cooperative competition.

In the second episode, two student members of the Redbacks team (one current and one alumni) give us a student perspective of what team membership is like for them, and how it has helped them develop technical, personal and interpersonal skills. Saskia – a current member and one of the Team Captains is in Year 11. And Alastair is a team alumni and now studying Engineering.

I'll take one more minute in this introduction to give you some background on the Redbacks Robotics team.

The team grew from a small number of students in 2014 through to their successes in 2017. In 2017 the team competed in Australia and around the globe in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and the VEX Robotics Competition (VRC). The team won the most Regionals of any team in FRC, and were finalists in their Division at Championships.

For more information and to see the show notes of all our episodes, please go to txplore.com/p/stemiverse.