Community Outreach and Mentorship Program

by The Hawaii Marsbot Team

A collaboration between Kapiolani Community College and the University of Hawaii at Manoa
Authors: Rae-Zan Belen Steven Ewers Liem Nguyen Holm Smidt Justin Dery Daniel Inafuku Tayler Pave Logan Tamayo Abstract
Inspiring the next generation in elds related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is of foremost importance to modern society. By reaching out to students with hands-on experiences, one can foster their interest, and get them engaged in STEM from an early age. Doing so is not only part of NASAs strategic goal 6, but also of highest priority to the Obama administration according to the U.S. Department of Education [1]. There are various ways of engaging and inspiring students in STEM; our outreach program focuses on robotics mentorship, the use of desktop-sized 3D-printers and hands-on engineering experience, and community events.

Mentors: Dr. Aaron Hanai Dr. Herv Collin

Outreach Report

Hawaii Marsbot Team

NASAs 2014 RMC

Introduction
Inspiring the youth in STEM has become of highest priority to modern society. According to Hawaii State Department of Education, STEM is infused within every facet of our society and plays a major role in determining Hawaiis future viability. STEM education develops tomorrows innovators who will overcome the unforeseen challenges in healthcare, public safety, the economy and the environment" [2]. The Hawaii Marsbot Team entirely concurred with these statements and has therefore, set their goal to strive for the highest in designing and implementing a meaningful outreach program that would 1. Benet students of various ages in our local community by engaging them in STEMrelated activities. 2. Create awareness on robotics and spacerelated activities. 3. Help team members develop critical leadership skills. In fulllment of these objectives as well as NASAs objective to implement an Outreach Project [4], the Hawaii Marsbot team developed a strategic outreach plan that would address all three objectives. That is, the team has adopted and mentored a team of local elementary students in pursuit of competing in their rst robotics competition, implemented a 3D-printer based outreach program at a local high school, and participated/ showcased our project in various events within our local community.

activities. 2. Plan and conduct outreach activities at one of our colleges feeder high schools as the beginning of a mutual continuing 3D-printing based outreach connection between Kapiolani Community College and Kaimuki High School. 3. Attend social events and make use of social media to reach a larger number of people from various ages and backgrounds. 4. Pass on knowledge of how outreach can benecially impact college students leadership skills as well as provide Hawaiis youth with knowledge that could help them prepare and transcend in the STEM eld. The following briey discusses each of these cornerstones; more detailed information can be found on our team website under the outreach tab (http: //kcclunabotics.weebly.com/outreach.html).

M anoa Elementary
The main focus of the Hawaii Marsbot Teams outreach program was with M anoa Elementary School. The team was able to help establish a VEX IQ robotics team of nine Hawaii elementary school students with the help of a fth grade teacher, who was gracious enough to collaborate with the team in order to introduce robotics to her school. VEX IQ is a robotics starter program that challenges elementary and middle school students to design and build a robot that will be able to fulll challenging but fun tasks. M anoa Elementarys Fifth Grade Green Tigers" began their journey in October of 2013, with little to no idea of what they would be doing, besides building a robot". The Hawaii Marsbot team set up regular weekly meeting with the class, often numerous times per week, to instruct them in the engineering process, programming, teamwork, and proper design documentation. Further help was provided in the development of design and protoPage 1

Outreach Program Strategic Plan

The Hawaii Marsbot Teams strategic plan of their community outreach builds on the following four cornerstones: 1. Establish a robotics mentorship program with M anoa Elementary school to engage younger students, on a weekly basis, in robotics related

Outreach Report

Hawaii Marsbot Team

NASAs 2014 RMC

types, competition strategies, and pre-competition testing. Over the course of three months, the Green Tigers were able to select two strong teams, working together to produce a competition-ready robot for their rst VEX IQ competition on January 18, 2014. Their design was documented in their design journals, and a presentation poster was made. They went on to place in each competition (a total of 3), moving on to the next with more condence, and better designs, failing only to place in the nal State Championship. Reaching out to a class of about 30 students, our team was able to mentor the students in a way they had never experienced, from October 2013 and well into February of 2014. Through this process they learned the engineering method - how to move from design constraints, to a design, through the optimization and documentation processes, and nally to the fabrication and presentation. In Figure 1, an excerpt from one of the students design journals can be seen. Note how they added comments on how to improve the design.

They thoroughly enjoyed the process as well as did their families. As a tribute to their appreciation, their teacher wrote, I sincerely appreciate your time, patience, and expertise in helping our team get this far. They wouldnt have made the top 20 if we didnt have your help! -Mrs. Mitsuda, Fifth Grade M anoa Elementary School Teacher Along the way, our eorts were also recognized by Hawaii Space Grant Consortium Education Specialist and Hawaii VEX IQ coordinator, Mr. Art Kimura, for helping mentor Mrs. Mitsuda and her students. We, also, gained from this experience. It solidied everything we had learned about design as well as team work, and teaching gave us an insight into how we still need to apply the same techniques in higher-level endeavors and how to still have fun and be passionate in our work. Our team will be following up with the Green Tigers by giving them a pre-competition demo of our robot in action as well as the opportunity to ocially name our robot . As a tribute to this experience, we have made a video outlining this part of our outreach project. Please view (and like!) it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXv4O_dl-mc Facts: >200 cumulative team hours & >1000 people over a span of 5 months

Kaimuki High School

Figure 1: Excerpt from one of the Fifth Graders design journals (left) and Hawaii Marsbot team member Justin Dery engaging with the students to assist them.

Kaimuki High School (KHS) is a local high school and a feeder school of Kapiolani Community College (KCC) that serves underprivileged students from Palolo Valley. In recent years, the school has experienced a drastic drop in enrollments, which is why KCC took the initiative to help KHS revive their STEM program and help increase enrollment Page 2

Outreach Report

Hawaii Marsbot Team

NASAs 2014 RMC

rates in the years to come. KHS welcomed KCCs presence as they had given KCC a classroom on their campus that is easily accessible for KHS students. The team, along with the Kapiolani STEM RepRap team, was able to transform the room that was given to them into a new STEM lab that could be used for both KCC mentors and KHS students. While KHS provided KCC with the space, KCC will provide college student mentors and knowledge that would help engage KHS students in STEM in a new collaborative KCC/KHS STEM lab. The Hawaii Marsbot team collaborated with the KCC RepRap team to implement an outreach program that focuses on the use of 3D-printers. The primary focus of this outreach is to provide KHS with their own RepRap printer that KHS students can then use to build another RepRap printer to donate to their feeder schools as well as to engage in STEM and learn the engineering design process, since classroom and lab printing projects require all the steps used in real-world engineering" [3]. Together, they were able to engage KHS students in fun and exciting STEM-related activities. During initial workshops, the Hawaii Marsbot Team and the KCC RepRap team gave introductory presentation on the nature of the respective projects, as well as engaged the students in some fun engineering activities. High School students were introduced to the engineering design process using the Easy Hydraulics Machines" instructable. This activity taught the students to 1. identify the problem, 2. make a design plan, 3. prototype the system. Figure 2 shows KHS collaborating on their engineering design (left) as well as prototyping their design.

Figure 2: KHS students designing (left) and prototyping (right) their hydraulic box

Figure 3 shows the results of the preliminary assessment survey at KHS. As shown, the audience of the outreach was fairly new to STEM and CAD software; however, 100 % percent of the audience was interested in building a RepRap 3D printer and designing 3-dimensional objects using CAD.

Figure 3: Students likelihood to pursue a degree in STEM (left) and their prior experience with CAD (right)

The Hawaii Marsbot team is very proud to say that because of the teams involvement, the foundation has been built for a long-lasting outreach connection between KCC and KHS. This outreach is unique in a way that college students engage on a weekly basis with high school students while at the same time having the space to work on undergraduate research experience (URE) projects. So far, we were able to engage with 11 KHS students vver a span of multiple weeks. The weekly outreach events will continue into June 2014 to help Kaimuki High School attract and retain STEM students for their new STEM Center, which is planned to open in Fall 2014 . Throughout this outreach, the team learned Page 3

Outreach Report

Hawaii Marsbot Team

NASAs 2014 RMC

critical leadership skills that helped to establish this program and will benet the community in the future. Facts: >60 cumulative team hours & >20 people over a span of 1 month

Outreach Events
Honolulu District Science Fair Elementary to middle school students presented their STEM-related projects annually in form of a poster to a variety of judges at the 2014 Honolulu District Science Fair on February 8, 2014. The fair was held at KCC and therefore an optimal event to reach a wider range of students and their families to promote engagement in science. During the event, we had students inspect our robot as well as sign their names up for the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. As shown in Figure 4, students were very engaged with the rovers tank-tread drive system. We outreached about 100 students and their parents over a span of 4 hours. Honolulu Mini Maker Faire For the second half of the academic year, the team focused more on Outreach within the community. The team registered for Honolulus rst Mini-Maker Faire. This event was on March 15, 2014. At the Mini-Maker Faire, the team held a booth among many passionate innovators where they also displayed their projects. Throughout this event, the Hawaii Marsbot Team was able to reach out to people of all ages to show and tell the teams submission for the NASA Robotics Mining Competition. From this event, the team was able to network with many people in industry to learn about bio-mining, device fabrication, and competition protocol. The Marsbot was a hit with the local Maker community!
Figure 5: Team member Steven Ewers discussing DIY projects at the Honolulu Mini Maker Faire

Figure 4: Interacting with Kalihi Kai elementary students at the Science Fair.

University of Hawaii Community College 50th Anniversary College Day The Hawaii Marsbot team was also fortunate to represent Kapiolani Community College at the University of Hawaii Community Colleges 50th Anniversary, which was held at the State Capitol building on March 18, 2014. This event celebrated the various exceptional programs that are oered in the University of Hawaii Community College System. Page 4

Outreach Report

Hawaii Marsbot Team

NASAs 2014 RMC

Kapiolani Community College was given a booth to showcase the programs they oer; the Hawaii Marsbot team represented the STEM program. This event gave the Marsbot team members the opportunity to reach out to the general public - over 300 people attended this event. Everybody from high school students, Hawaiis senator(s), politicians, passersby, and local news people stopped by and the team was able to inform them about robotics, the competition, and the process that came along with it. The Hawaii Marsbot display was featured on 3 local news channels for this event.

NASAs Robotic Mining Competition and robotics in general.

Conclusion
In total, the Hawaii Marsbot Team spent 310+ hours working in the community. The design and implementation of this Outreach Program in the scope of NASAs Robotic Mining Competition has been a very enriching and rewarding experience for all team members. Not only were we able to hone our own leadership skills, but we were also able to foster our team spirit during these various fun outreach events. Not to mention, working with students such as with M anoa elementary school students and Kaimuki High School students has been very rewarding because we were able to observe their progress over an extended period of time. Seeing these students grow and actively engage in STEM, and especially robotics, related activities gave us a sense of conrmation that we were able make a dierence in the community.

Figure 6: Picture of our team leader, Liem, with the State governor (top) and the team explaining the college experience to some interested high schoolers(bottom)

References
Facts: 50 cumulative team hours & >400 people over a span of 3 events Social Media The Hawaii Marsbot team has used a wide variety of social media channels to be more open to the channel (https://twitter.com/ HawaiiMarsbot and https://www.facebook.com/ HawaiiMarsbot2014), YouTube Channel (http: //www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ1PVOWTWUdO_ IYYrSEli1w). In addition, the team has established and maintained team website (kcclunabotics. weebly.com). Using these social media components has helped the team to create more awareness on [1] U.S. Department of Education . (2013). Science, technology, engineering, math: Education for global leadership. Available: http://www. ed.gov/stem. [2] Hawaii State Department of Education . (2013). STEM. Available: http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/ TeachingAndLearning/StudentLearning/ Stem/Pages/home.aspx. [4] NASA Robotic Mining Competition Website,Kennedy Space Center,2014. Available: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/ Page 5

Outreach Report

Hawaii Marsbot Team

NASAs 2014 RMC

centers/kennedy/technology/nasarmc. html

[5] S. Murray, Turning students into engineers with 3D printing", in Tech Directions, 73(1), 12-14, 2013.

Page 6