Junior Writers Explore Maryville STEM Studio
The Junior Writer’s Club gathered on Sunday, January 28th to visit the Maryville Interactive Stem Studio for an introduction to robotics and to greet new and old members. Dr. Angie Moehlmann, the program director of the studio in the Chesterfield Mall, gave the junior writers a tour of the space, showing everyone the wide variety of fun and educational hands-on activities.
Member, Ivy Zhang, mentioned the tour of stem studio. “I saw a gaming room with a lot of computers and a Nintendo switch. It looked like so many fun ways to learn!”
After the new members were introduced to the club, Sphero robots along with iPads to control them were brought out. Using small traffic cones, bowling pins, and walls, everyone joined together to make mini obstacle courses for the robots to drive through.
Norah Zhang said, “I really enjoyed playing and challenging ourselves with mini robots, I think kids should try the Maryville University camp! Coding robotics and guiding them through obstacles is a great challenge and you learn from them! Robotics can be a learning experience not just fun! Thank you for the opportunity and try new and different things!”
An app on the iPad controlled the Sphero-bots and had a selection of settings to move or customize the robots in different ways.
“Sunday’s meeting was very fun and inspiring for me. The little sphere-enclosed robot was a very interesting thing to play with, especially with the control that is based off of the loudness of the environment!” explained Tong Zhou.
Tong’s sister, Shan, said, “Sunday was very interesting, and I really enjoyed having a hands-on activity. The little bot provided a challenge when we had to drive them through the obstacles.”
“I loved how we got to choose and experiment with the different tools and settings on the Sphero. Though the task of making the robot run through the obstacles sounded easy, in reality it was really difficult. In the end it was every enjoyable and I had a lot of fun,” said junior writer, Dhwani Vivek.
It was a fun and creative way to get introduced to STEM-based concepts, but for a more in-depth experience, Dr. Moehlmann described the three different summer camps that Maryville University hosts for students aged 4-18 featuring topics of science, robotics, technology, and coding.
All members left looking forward to the next club meeting!