Winners of
2022 Dan Swets Robotics Materials Awards
The 2022 grant winners included three educators who were awarded the following amounts to purchase robotics materials for their school classrooms or informal education robotics programs
Winners of
2022 Dan Swets Robotics Materials Awards
The 2022 grant winners included three educators who were awarded the following amounts to purchase robotics materials for their school classrooms or informal education robotics programs
In order from left to right:
Allison Zacher who teaches at Whitewood Elementary School will use her $2,750 award to expand their school’s current robotics program that uses of LEGO WeDo and MindStorm kits to include LEGO Education SPIKE kits that include simple coding progression that can be used with all grade levels within her school’s STEAM classes. Allison’s project will reach about 100 K-5 students.
Kevin Militello, Robotics Coach at Douglas Middle School in Box Elder, SD, will use his $4,649 award to expand his robotics program which currently serves about 20 middle school students and add some elementary students to the program to build on the problem-solving skills they are developing by designing and building sensing machines for the robots, with the use of 3D printers acquired through a separate grant from DoD. (Photo shows award being presented to Kevin by Dr. Peggy Norris at SD STEM Ed Conference in Huron on 2/4/22.)
Aviana Knochel a volunteer informal educator with extensive robotics experience at the SD Discovery Center in Pierre will use her $5,034 award to purchase VEX and FingerTech Combat Robot Kits to be used in the Discovery Center’s MS & HS Robotics Camps. Aviana’s project will reach up to 36 students this year with plans to expand beyond that in the future.