Local Kids Promote STEM Education with A Moon Tale and Robot

Lucas Li, Jake North, Lauren and Ethan Quan are going to the moon… These local 5th, 6th and 7th graders are finalists in the Moonbots Google Lunar XPrize Challenge and they are on a mission to inspire kids to get involved with robotics and space exploration.

Their team is the “Purely Quantum Coders” and they’ve had a blast building and programming the Meccano Mechanoid G15KS robot that they won through this exciting global challenge. Now they are ready to launch into the community to show people what kids and robots can do.

According to their website, “Moonbots is designed to challenge teams to develop and design an innovative lunar landscape that is capable of having a robot perform a simulated lunar mission. The Challenge is considered a “game of skill” and is designed to help teams learn about different robotic platform systems and team building, while also generating excitement about the new moon race.”

“We created our Lunar Tale in Phase One of the challenge and now we are in the design, build and program stage of Phase Two. The final part of our mission is to demonstrate our Moonbots game to children and adults in our community” says, 11 year old Jake North. “We’re hoping to show them how fun STEM education can be.”

Last weekend they set up a base camp at the Nisei Week Japanese Festival in downtown Los Angeles. They brought their recently completed humanoid robot and set him loose on a simulated Lunar Landscape to demonstrate what these innovative new robots can accomplish. The 6th grader Lauren Quan and other team members spend almost the whole day at the festival demonstrating the capability of Meccanoid robot. “I enjoyed the most when talking to the robot. People got really excited when I showed them how the robot worked, and they were asking me where to buy it,” says Lauren. “I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the Purely Quantum Coders team and learning about programming the robot,” says team member and Lauren’s brother, 7th grader Ethan Quan.

The most rewarding aspect of the mission for the Purely Quantum Coders has been donating VEX IQ robotics kits to Cerritos Elementary, a Title One school that serves socio-economic disadvantaged children. “It feels really good to know that we are giving these kits and the hands-on instruction to go with them to kids who might not have had access to robots. I hope that they will be as inspired as we are by the endless possibilities…” says North. The school’s Principal, Mrs. Perla Chavez-Fritz, gratefully accepted the donation saying “I want to thank you for this amazing opportunity for our students. They are so excited to take on this challenge and grow with this robotics program.”

“I had the opportunity to volunteer at Cerritos Elementary as “The Principal of the Day” last year. Through the direct interaction with students in their classrooms, I learned that lots of students love robots, however they thought that they would make robots when they grow up. I told them that they don’t have to wait until then. They can and should make robots now. The principal told me that the school tried robotics program before, but needs help in resources in order to get their robotics program going again. We hope to build a sustainable community support of robotics education at this local school with the generous donation from the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation.” says Team Captain, Bing Jiang of Rolling Robots.

The donation of the VEX IQ Kits will enable to the school to start engaging students in robotics immediately. Advanced middle school and high school students who have been studying robotics will be able to volunteer to teach the students at Cerritos Elementary School. They even plan to help them start a VEX IQ team this year.

The next stop for the Purely Quantum Coders is the Toberman Neighborhood Center in San Pedro where they are putting on an interactive demonstration for the children. “I’ve had the opportunity to volunteer at Toberman and I really appreciate the work that they do to enrich the lives of kids who need it most.” says Jake North, “Everyone at Toberman genuinely cares about each other and the enthusiasm of the kids is awesome.”

The Purely Quantum Coders are ready to change the world and they expressed their sincere gratitude to companies like Google, Spinmaster, VEX Robotics, Dexter Industries, Cognation Robotics, Geek Mom, Geek Dad, FIRST and the REC Foundation for inspiring them to go above and beyond and for sponsoring the Challenge and supplying them with the Mechanoid Robotics Kit for their team as well as several additional VEX IQ kits and guides for them to donate.

The sky is the limit to what these amazing kids can accomplish. Someday, they could realize their dream of helping the world through robotics and maybe even traveling to the moon!