The Sta Telegram – Robert Cadwallader
“Julisa Chavez, 11, of Arlington traces her interest in robotics to a girls’ Lego building set she played with when she was much younger, when boys her age were “building race cars and stuff.” “I started building random things, like hearts and girly stuff, like flowers, out of Legos,” Chavez, a sixth-grader at Harmony Science Academy in Euless, said as she concentrated on an intricate plastic-and-metal robot at the East Arlington Branch Library on a recent Tuesday. Her team was among four student groups building small motorized robots and writing programs to make them do something helpful, like grasp an object and carry it to a doll patient. “The theme is assistive robotics — robots that can help people in need,” said Gian-Luca Mariottini, an assistant professor in the University of Texas at Arlington department of computer science and engineering, and the creator of the pilot 12-week after-school program. “The goal is to have robots at home or in the hospital that can carry medicines, give medicines to people in need in a disaster-response area.” Mariottini’s short-range goal is to expand the pilot program into the Technology Education Academy — a broader program to nudge middle and high school students toward the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics., called STEM.”(more)