Baltimore Robotics Mentoring (BRM) is a program that supports Baltimore City Schools’ robotics teams throughout the competition season with the goal of sparking the interest of Baltimore City students in STEM and inspiring them to pursue STEM degrees and careers. It started in 2013 as a student-led program supporting one school.
Today, BRM supports more than 10 teams across the City with near-peer mentoring as well as volunteering at the VEX and VEX IQ robotics competitions throughout the year. During the VEX robotics season, Johns Hopkins undergraduate and graduate mentors travel to schools each week to work with 4–12th grade students as they build, program, test, and drive their robots.
Interested in Joining?
Check out the Information Slides and complete the Interest Form by October 15th.
“I think it was very important because they would never let us give up, when we had a really hard problem they would make sure we kept going and didn’t give up. ”
About the Program
The BRM program combines near-peer mentoring with event support to provide comprehensive support to Baltimore City Schools’ VEX Robotics program.
- Mentoring Sessions: The foundation of BRM are the weekly mentoring sessions. A group of 2-3 mentors are assigned to each partner school and travel each week to support the robotics teams as they design, build and program their robots. One school may up to five teams, each consisting of 2-3 students with their own robot.
- Competition Support: Starting in October there are two Saturday competitions each month (one for VEX IQ and one for VEX V5) that BRM mentors attend as either mentors or volunteers. If their school is competing, the mentors are there to support the team during the event. If their school is not competing, they attend as a volunteer and help make the event run smoothly.
VEX Robotics is the robotics platform that all BRM-supported schools use. Schools either use VEX IQ, which is designed grades 4 – 8, or VEX V5, which is designed for grades 9 – 12. More information about VEX can be found on their website. The VEX IQ competition for the 2024-2025 school year is Rapid Relay. The VEX V5 competition for the 2024-2025 school year is High Stakes.
The idea for the Baltimore Robotics Mentoring (BRM) program was created during a JHU Intersession class called “Leading Social Change” in January 2011 by Vickor Ekanem. He created a student organization called Baltimore Robotics Institute (BRI) which was part of the Center for Social Concern and supported and advised by Margaret Hart, our Center’s STEM Outreach Advisor until the student group was dissolved in 2019. In 2023, BRI was resurrected as the Baltimore Robotics Mentoring (BRM) program within our Center and supported five schools in the 2023-2024 school year.
“As a person who grew up doing robotics, it is very rewarding to get the chance to share my knowledge and stories with the kids…Do you know the glow on a kid’s face when they first score points with their new robots? That’s why I became a mentor. ”