The IET as part of its mission seeks to Inspire people from all walks of life about what can be achieved with Engineering and a key part of that is opening young minds to the possibilities that an Engineering career can bring them with opportunities ranging from apprenticeships through to Engineering Council Registration.


To support this Members and volunteers within the Southern California Local Network have for many years been supporting teams in the First Lego League and we are delighted to see that as the operational partner for the First Lego League in the UK, the IET has just started a junior event.

This year as part of the IET focus on inspiring young minds to these opportunities we have decided to go further with our outreach to the local community through donations and visits to local schools.


The first donation was a Lego Robotics kit to the Peninsula Heritage School to help with their STEM activities and to encourage them to enter a team in the local First Lego League later this year. Hopefully with a bit of encouragement they will be able to build something like this


Of course Robots come in many shapes and forms and can be just as educational if they come as a pack of Lego pieces or assembled and ready for programming. For those who have seen the latest Star Wars film the Sphero series of robots should look familiar. As part of an outreach effort to local schools the Local Network Chairman presented two Sphero SPRK edition robots that had been donated to the Local Network in turn to Doty Middle School which is in one of the less privileged parts of Los Angeles to help with their STEM efforts. The Sphero SPRK edition kit robots have associated lesson plans available to help parents and teachers make learning fun, helping the children be successful in understanding the concepts behind programming.


 


Robert Becker, the Technology Team Leader said “We have an exciting new engineering program at our school and I'm sure it would fit right in”. We are not entirely sure if the children were more excited by having the robots to learn with or the fact that they were delivered in a car part engineered by IET members at Karma Automotive, one of several high performance vehicles in the Automotive Sector that is so vibrant in Southern California.


We will be keeping in touch with both of those schools to offer additional help if requested. If you know of a school that would benefit from volunteer assistance in encouraging STEM careers or activities from the IET locally please let us know in the comments section below.