Kyle Hughes
Clarkston High School, Clarkston

The RUSH Robotics After School Club

Objectives
The RUSH robotics after school club has the following key objectives—

• Build a world-class robot “athlete” and be a world-class club

• Communicate the importance of Science, Mathematics, Engineering, & Technology (STEM) to younger students and the community

• Prepare future leaders to make this world better by developing and using skills in STEM

Additionally, the club strives to develop quality ethical technology users and inspire students to embrace learning in STEM while preparing for college. Students develop a desire to make a positive difference as leaders in the world through sharing their knowledge.

Approach
Students work with mentor engineers to manufacture a robot. They learn the design process from these carefully selected, dedicated and highly skilled mentors. This has led to inspire students to continually pursue post-college careers in STEM.

Students work in specialized sub-teams. During the “build session,” students are separated into sub-teams, which allow students to develop technical skills and gain more in-depth knowledge in areas of interest and/or where they have shown individual strengths.

Students mentor younger kids in STEM at elementary and middle school levels by sponsoring Lego Camps, Engineering Badge Day, and giving presentations at schools and throughout the community.

Students give back to the community. Each year the students give a minimum of 15 individual hours.

Teamwork, business skills and leadership skills are all learned by the students.

Relevance
Team RUSH students use a world-class design process to build a competitive robot “athlete.” They learn the connection between the work they are doing and the actual industrial/business world through the mentors.

They are connected to the real world through their community outreach and work with elementary and middle school programs.

Assessment
As a teacher, emphasis is on learning. Sometimes the intense time commitments during the build season cause students’ grades to slide a little. This year, with a mandatory 1-hour of study time after school the students have on their own initiative been coming in early and participating in 2 hours of study daily. Weekly progress reports are turned in and there is accountability placed back on the student to bring their grades up. If a student is struggling in a class the club supports them. They are gently and kindly put in academic “watch,” given studying support by the older students and spend club time studying.

Challenges
Growth is one of the biggest challenges. As the team continues to grow, so too must the learning experiences. It is important that each individual student gets a quality experience and with this growth, it is difficult to guarantee. Through alumni returning and careful selection of our mentors, we have been able to continue this awesome experience for our students.

Team growth has also resulted in continuous financial troubles. Being self-funded each year we start with a zero dollar balance and have to raise $60,000 (based on 35 students). More students in the club=more dollars for competition and uniforms.

To overcome this obstacle, we continue to brainstorm more fundraisers and are trying to develop fundraisers that can be continued from year to year as part of our system.

Lastly, the biggest challenge our club has ever had was this year with the sudden passing of one of our students. Being only 16 years old, we lost a valuable member of this community. He was going to make a difference in this world. He definitely made a difference in ours.