Episode 151

Guest: Robo Hawks Robotics Team Harris Middle School

Our robotics team was created 3 years ago with a small group of students. We have a blend of 6th-8th students, but out of the seven students we had in the club, only one was a female when we first started out. Since our first year we have achieved a more balanced group and have an even mix of young men and women. We began participating in First Lego League as a way to get our feet wet with programming and compete with other teams throughout the San Antonio and surrounding areas. FIRST LEGO League challenges kids to think like scientists and engineers. During the INTO ORBIT season, teams will choose and solve a real-world problem in the Project. They will also build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® technology to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game. Throughout their experience, teams will operate under the FIRST signature set of Core Values, celebrating discovery, teamwork, and Gracious Professionalism®.

Our students took this challenge head on and we spoke with an engineer from NASA to talk about the challenges these astronauts face with long term space travel. During their conversation with David Brady they realized they wanted to focus on the social emotional aspect these astronauts are faced with because Scott Kelly stated this would be the biggest concern NASA will face. Scott Kelly said the lack of choices in daily activity and being away from Earth is the hardest part of the mission. So the students solution to this was to send virtual reality googles into space with the astronauts so that when they are required to work out on the treadmill for 2 hours a day, they can feel at home by choosing their own adventure. It would be a way to bring Earth to space in a sense. David was impressed with their idea and forwarded the idea on to a colleague at NASA in the Human Research Project to see if they had considered this idea. I’m happy to report that NASA is looking into something similar and David praised our students ingenuity as they did think of a real-life solution for the issues our astronauts face in long-term space travel.


About Middle School Teacher: Stefanie Fulford

I have been teaching for six years. Four of which have been here at Harris Middle School in NEISD. I have always taught science as it is my first love and I believe there is a place for female in this field of study. This year I was awarded the Trinity Prize and Teacher of the Year for my school. I come from a very challenging background as my mother is mentally handicapped, schizophrenic, and has manic depression. I never knew my real dad and my step-dad was an abusive alcoholic. So I was in and out of foster care and finally went to live in an orphanage at age 12. This was a new battle for me, but it provided stability. I joined the military as a way to pay for my college because I knew education was the key to a better life. I am proud to say I not only have my bachelors in education, but a masters in psychology. I wanted to be a positive influence in others around me so teaching made sense as I would create the most change in the next generation. I take every opportunity to connect with my students so that I can positively influence them.

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