WeGoStem is an initiative to bring STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) to children between 9 and 11 years old.
Different volunteers (myself included) give 2 workshops in a classroom. Our team consists of 3 people from the IT-sector (2x Colruyt Group and 1x PwC).
The workshops look like this:
- A classical discussion about robots
- A drawing exercise, where one student is the programmer and the rest are the computers
- And last but not least: the building and programming of a real drawing robot
Robot discussion
Drawing exercise
The Drawing robot
The students just get a picture of the finished robot, and have to figure out themselves how they have to build it. But you’d be surprised to see how fast they can build it.
After that, it’s programming time. There’s no need to write complicated coding. They can just drag & drop some coding blocks and modify some parameters. Every pair of students manages to build a working drawing robot, with just a minimum of help.
I can really recommend anyone to subscribe to these workshops. The kids are very enthusiastic, and it is really rewarding to sacrifice a day of your time to give these workshops. For many students, it is the first time they encounter STEM. And who knows, you might just inspire them to pursue a STEM career…
Geek stuff 