Each quarter, Project MARS/AmeriCorps collects “Great Stories” from its members in which they reflect on their experiences mentoring in the classroom and the progress they see students making. In this month’s story, Taylor Swain talks about the power of robotics to connect with kids.
I was excited to return to Project MARS for my second year of service, primarily to be able to spend that service connecting with students at my school. A way that I’ve always found to build those connections is by finding common interests with the students, which I have done this year by helping mentor the Robotics team for students in grades 4th-8th.
From our very first meeting, I’ve enjoyed being able to spend time with the kids on the team. Watching them work with the robots and the coding to problem solve how to make things work is inspiring, and it’s incredibly enjoyable to watch how much fun they are having with trying to figure the problems out.
The students in Robotics are ones who enjoy technology and so called “nerdier” things, which is something that I love being able to talk with them about, while being able to build those connections with them.