On May 19th, students from Barclay Elementary School came to the Homewood campus for an Outreach Visit. The visit was the result of a partnership between Barclay Elementary/Middle School, Baltimore City Public Schools, and Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering. The partnership provides the students with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) programming that focuses on engineering and computer science. Over the course of the 10-year partnership, the goal is to promote STEM education and enhance Barclay Elementary/Middle School through its ties to Johns Hopkins University as a PK-8 STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) community school.
On Friday’s visit, the 5th graders were able to build a “Light Escaping Robot” with help from ECE department’s Philippe Pouliquen, Gaspar Tognetti, and grad students Kaylin Moody, John Rattray, Kayode Sanni, Chukwuebuka Arinze, Adebayo Eisape, Jordi Abante, and Jonah Sengupta. The students had a blast figuring out how to assemble the robots and then “training” them to follow or escape the light from the mini flashlights. At the end of the day, each student was able to take their robot home to continue the fun and education. One student stated, “I liked when we got to make the robot cars and (made) it work with light”. While another student said, “I learned that engineers can do anything they want to”.