It’s no surprise that members of the Albany High School Robotics Team are pumped about STEM. And on Thursday, two of them shared their passion with fourth- and fifth-graders at Thomas O’Brien Academy of Science and Technology (TOAST).
Senior Thor Hammer is president of Albany High’s Robotics Team and a former TOAST student. He told the younger learners that his goal as team president has been to visit schools to get students as excited as he is about STEM – science, technology, engineering and math.
Hammer was joined by fellow senior and STEM enthusiast Sophia Lucarelli, who also serves as Robotics Team treasurer. They were accompanied by the robot they and their teammates created with STEM for a regional robotics tournament in March 2020. Sadly, the competition was scrapped due to COVID. But the robot lives on to inspire future generations of Albany High Robotics Team recruits.
Lucarelli asked TOAST students if they’d ever built anything with Legos. When nearly every student raised a hand, Hammer and Lucarelli informed them that were engineers.
“All of us are engineers, along with our entire team,” Lucarelli said. She, Hammer and the students discussed different ways STEM affects our everyday lives and different possible jobs in STEM fields.
Hammer and Lucarelli also talked to students about the engineering and design parts of building a robot and emphasized the importance of working as a team. And Hammer did a brief demonstration of some of the robot’s abilities.
With notebooks in hand, the TOAST students (six different classes!) were intrigued and full of questions. And after the presentation, 9 out of 10 said they wanted to join a new after-school Coding Club that will start at TOAST in January.
But that wasn’t all.
Hammer created a challenge for students: Build a structure that will protect inhabitants of the Ping Pong Planet from a meteorite that is about to hit. He sent off every student with a bag of materials they would use later to design the structure.
Thursday’s presentations were a combination of the Robotics Club’s desire to get younger students excited about STEM and Hammer’s community service project for the International Baccalaurate Diploma Program at Albany High.
Hammer plans to student engineering in college. Lucarelli plans to study physical therapy.
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