​Our Robotics Programs
​Robotics = "Awesome!"
​Robotics Staircases
During the past eight years of our Fast Track Grants program, we have established and actively supported more than 70 robotics programs throughout Maine and portions of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, Canada.
A number of these programs are clubs and exploratories, with participation by girls typically in the range of 15-20%. However, the majority of our programs are curriculum based, taught by classroom teachers and technology integrators, requiring full participation by both boys and girls.
As the video clips on this web site illustrate, when participation is mandatory, girls quickly develop an interest and enthusiasm for building and programming their robotic vehicles.
Moreover, we've observed that girls often demonstrate a higher level of cooperation and problem solving ability than boys, with an excellent capacity to explain clearly and concisely how they are identifying and solving technical problems.
Based on these observations, we believe that it is important to expose all students to building and programming robotics from the early grades through high school, offering them increasingly challenging tasks and competitive opportunities, not unlike those traditionally available through school sports, music and the visual arts. Used together with the traditional core sciences curriculum and other enrichment opportunities, this approach may well succeed in encouraging more students to consider engineering, computer science and technical careers.
But in any case, they'll have fun doing and learning—whatever their personal or career interests may turn out to be!
Dave and Sandy Perloff
"I think people are realizing that engineering and science are extremely good degrees to get and you'll be very highly paid once you've got them."
James Dyson
