Young scientist program helps teach robotics

The USC Young Scientist Program held a computer science and robotics workshop Wednesday afternoon at the 32nd Street School. The event was a joint effort between the Joint Education Project, YSP and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and was sponsored by the Winn family and Union Bank. The workshop included three stations designed to teach the nearly 50 fourth and fifth graders in attendance basic coding and robotics skills.

Directed by Dieuwertje Kast, the STEM program manager at JEP and a USC alumna, about 10 USC students volunteering with JEP helped teach elementary school students about computer science and robotics, fields that senior physics and computer science major Michael Qian sees as vital to their success today.

“Especially today, you can go into any field and knowing a little something about computers and how they work is somehow going to help you,” Qian said. “I think being able to have kids start learning at a younger age how computers work on the inside, how programming, how coding works … that’s definitely going to help them later on.”

The 32nd Street School is one of five in the “USC Family of Schools” that works with YSP to engage more than 1,400 elementary school students in hands-on STEM education. These workshops aim to pique students’ interests in the field, and previous workshop topics have included underwater robotics, sustainability and fitness. YSP workshops often include guests working in the industry, such as USC alumnae Logan (’07, ’11) and Blade Olson (’11), who attended the event Wednesday as a robotics design representatives from Disney Consumer Products and Interactive.

“We’re essentially here to make sure these kids learn something cool about robotics and answer any questions they have about what we do or how we use coding or robotics in our jobs,” Logan Olson said. “But I think it’s most important that these kids have a lot of fun.”

The 50 kids present, all of whom were selected through an application process by their interest, each chose one of three stations: basic coding using an interface called Scratch, making cardboard robots called Recyclobots that students could control with hand-drawn remotes or programming toothbrush robots called Bristlebots to paint and draw. With these activities and special guests, Kast said that she hoped participants learned some valuable lessons.

“What I hope they take away from today is an appreciation for what computer science currently does for them, but also that they can get the skills to be able to do this themselves and potentially get a job in the field in the future,” Kast said.

Fifth graders Michelle Naranjo and Pedro Rojas seemed to have no trouble understanding the possibilities which computer science and robotics can provide. As they worked meticulously on their cardboard Recyclobots, trying to make the best one to win a “swag bag” donated by Disney, they discussed their interest in robotics and engineering.

“I love robotics, and computer science and anything having to do with it,” Naranjo said. “I also came because there’s less women doing engineering and I want to help it.”

Rojas echoed Naranjo’s enthusiasm, highlighting the infinite creative possibilities that robotics allows.

“What inspired me to enter robotics is that there is a lot of engineering in it, a lot of coding, a lot of building — everything,“ Rojas said. “Whatever pops into my mind, I can just create it and that’s why I like robotics.”