by Brady Bast
CC4H’s presentation for Arts Fest Kid’s Day | Image Credits: HappyValley Industry.com
In a local, 4,000-square-foot build facility, more than 100 Happy Valley students are laying the foundation for successful careers in STEM fields. These students, members of Centre County 4-H Robotics, will become the future leaders of Centre County, and will, upon graduation, be highly sought after by universities and STEM employers.
“Our primary goal is to provide an exceptional extracurricular STEM and leadership development experience not typically available in traditional school systems.”
Bill Gendron, a community volunteer mentor, explained: “Centre County 4-H Robotics is a Penn State Extension 4-H community STEM program that provides hands-on learning to students from 4th to 12th grade across Centre County. Our primary goal is to provide an exceptional extracurricular STEM and leadership development experience not typically available in traditional school systems.”
The club partners adult volunteer mentors with both STEM and professional skills with enthusiastic youth to build, program, test and drive robots in regional and global competitions. Students in the program learn a wide range of skills, including the design process, mechatronics, electronics, CAD and additive manufacturing, fabrication, software coding (primarily JAVA), systems integration, business development and leadership. The unique, hands-on approach helps students develop teamwork, leadership and relevant business skills.
CC4H invited local community to play with miniature robots on kid’s day | Image Credits: HappyValley Industry.com
“Our projects focus on designing and building robots that meet the competition requirements of FIRST [Robotics], using age-appropriate technology,” Gendron described. “We compete in three divisions of FIRST Robotics Global Competitions: FIRST Lego League (FLL) for elementary school students, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for middle school students and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for high school students.”
“This program instills a strong sense of responsibility and a culture of giving back to the community.”
In 2018, the group’s high school team won the GLOBAL FIRST competition, outperforming thousands of teams worldwide.
“Winning competitions is a significant achievement,” Gendron noted. “But what’s more important is the real-world engineering challenges and teamwork experiences these students gain. This program instills a strong sense of responsibility and a culture of giving back to the community.”
One of several robots CC4H presented on Old Main Lawn | Image Credits: HappyValley Industry
During the off-season summer months, the club is busy supporting various community outreach events, building a business team to handle business development activities and preparing for the upcoming competitive season starting in the fall, all while keeping an eye on their future goals, including growing student membership, increasing the number of adult mentors and boosting sponsorship support to expand their impact across Centre County.
“We’re always looking for more people to join our efforts,” Gendron said, “whether you’re a student, a mentor, or a sponsor…”
Learn more about Centre County 4-H Robotics and how the group not only equips students with technical skills, but also prepares them to become the next generation of leaders and innovators, making a lasting impact on the community:
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